HOLY CRAP! The DOJ Has Launched a Criminal Investigation Into…

The legal empire that produced nearly $90 million in verdicts against President Donald Trump is now itself the subject of a federal criminal investigation, as the Department of Justice has opened a probe into E. Jean Carroll and the billionaire Democratic donor network that allegedly bankrolled her lawsuits behind her back, and possibly under oath.

The investigation is focused on a 2022 deposition in which Carroll stated she had not received outside funding for her lawsuit.

It was later revealed that some of her legal costs were covered by billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

Hoffman, one of the most prolific financiers of left-wing political causes in the United States, has donated millions to Democratic Party efforts over the years and has been an outspoken and unyielding critic of President Trump.

In a 2022 videotaped deposition, Carroll told then-Trump attorney Alina Habba that no one else was paying for her legal fees.

But just two weeks before the trial, Carroll’s attorneys informed the judge and Trump’s lawyers that they had in fact secured funding from Hoffman’s nonprofit.

Carroll’s lawyers said she never met nor had conversations with anyone associated with the nonprofit.

Habba said in court at the time that Carroll’s team had “conspired to conceal the truth for nearly six months.”

The investigation is more focused on Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, than Carroll herself, according to a source familiar with the DOJ’s operations.

The allegations under investigation include possible money laundering, obstruction, and conspiracy.

Hoffman’s nonprofit is based in Chicago, which is why Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously represented Trump in the Carroll case, has recused himself.

Senior DOJ officials referred the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago.

The backstory on the funding is worth examining carefully.

A philanthropic adviser for Hoffman stated in a 2017 statement that the nonprofit made a donation to the Kaplan Hecker and Fink law firm for a different public interest lawsuit.

But when the firm took up Carroll’s case in 2020, her lawyer asked if the grant money could be used for the suit against Trump.

“We had no prior knowledge at the time of the original grant that our funding would go to support her case in particular,” the adviser said.

Trump was previously found liable in two separate civil trials.

A 2023 jury awarded Carroll $5 million after finding Trump sexually abused her and defamed her, and a subsequent defamation jury handed down an $83.3 million judgment.

Trump was previously ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages, though the Supreme Court is still weighing whether to take up Trump’s appeal, meaning the judgment has not yet been collected.

It is also worth noting that Trump’s legal team raised the funding issue during the appeals process, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his position.

The court found there was no evidence Carroll was personally involved in securing the funding or had knowledge of where the money came from prior to her deposition, a finding that Carroll’s supporters say should lay the matter to rest.

The DOJ investigation suggests federal prosecutors are not persuaded.

For years, the Carroll case was treated by corporate media as a singular moral reckoning, a story with one villain and one victim, to be reported without nuance or scrutiny.

The possibility that the entire legal apparatus behind those billion-dollar verdicts was orchestrated by a network of partisan billionaires operating in the shadows deserves exactly the kind of scrutiny a criminal investigation brings.

Whether or not charges ultimately follow, the American public has a right to know who was pulling the strings, and whether anyone lied under oath to hide it.