U.S. Inquiry Into E. Jean Carroll’s Testimony Shifts Focus to Backer of Her Trump Lawsuits

The United States Department of Justice has opened a criminal inquiry examining the testimony of E. Jean Carroll, the former columnist who won multimillion-dollar verdicts against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation. Yet within a day of the initial disclosure, federal officials moved to recast the nature of the investigation: Carroll is not a target, they said, but her depositions about the funding of her civil lawsuits are being scrutinised as part of a separate probe into a non-profit linked to the billionaire Reid Hoffman that helped cover her legal expenses. Andrew Boutros, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, intervened publicly on social media to address what he called “wide-spread reporting and intense media and public interest” in the matter.

From Washington, the episode reads as a double-barrelled move: an apparently vigorous pursuit of possible perjury, followed by a careful walk-back that nonetheless leaves Carroll’s sworn statements under a cloud. The original reports, relayed by outlets including CNN and the New York Times, suggested prosecutors were directly investigating whether Carroll had lied under oath in the two civil proceedings. Those cases – one over the alleged mid‑1990s assault in a Manhattan department store dressing room, the other over Trump’s subsequent denials – resulted in jury awards totalling more than $88 million. In European capitals, the news was instantly absorbed into a narrative of political vengeance. Spanish dailies described “la venganza del poder” and a “steamroller of revenge”, while German coverage foregrounded the president’s role in triggering the inquiry against his accuser.

The correction, however, shifts the legal theatre. The new focus is not Carroll’s account of the alleged attack, but her answers about who paid for the litigation. That question tangles with an investigation into a charitable vehicle funded by Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor. The Chicago-based Boutros, a Trump nominee, is supervising the matter; Todd Blanche, the acting deputy attorney general and a former personal lawyer to the president, also features in the prosecutorial architecture – a constellation that critics say erodes the firewall between the White House and federal law enforcement. Moscow’s state-aligned press, by contrast, stuck closely to the dry details, relaying the CNN report with little editorial colour.

The affair deepens an already entrenched pattern of the Trump administration deploying the justice system against perceived adversaries. Even if Carroll is not herself a criminal defendant, the inquiry’s ability to pry open the financing of successful civil cases against a sitting president carries a chilling signal. Legal analysts across the Atlantic note that the mere existence of a perjury‑adjacent investigation – however it is framed by prosecutors – can be a weapon in itself, tainting a witness’s credibility and draining personal resources. The long-term question is whether this becomes a template: using financial scrutiny to unwind victories won in the courtroom. For now, the episode reinforces a global impression that American justice is increasingly subject to the gravitational pull of executive power.