The Trump Justice Department may be on the verge of adding to its vindictive prosecution portfolio.
A source familiar with the matter has confirmed to MS NOW that the DOJ opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the 82-year-old writer who won tens of millions of dollars in damages in two separate but related civil cases against President Donald Trump, who was found civilly liable for sexually abusing Carroll decades ago and for defaming her more recently. Trump has denied wrongdoing and is seeking Supreme Court review of both cases after losing in the lower courts.
CNN first reported on the investigation, citing multiple unnamed sources familiar with the matter and specifying that the probe “is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president” in those cases in which she won those millions of dollars in damages. “Prosecutors’ theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement by Carroll, 82, that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some legal fees and expenses,” CNN reported.
The inquiry reportedly is being conducted in the federal office in Chicago led by Trump-backed U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros. His office recently drew national attention in the “Broadview Six” prosecution against immigration protesters, whose charges Boutros dropped after potential misconduct in his office tainted the case.
How Carroll could win
Vindictive prosecution motions are rarely won, but Trump’s revenge-themed second term has spawned a series of such motions brought by high-profile targets of the administration. We recently saw a successful example in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose criminal charges of illegally transporting undocumented immigrants were dismissed last week on vindictiveness grounds. A federal judge in Tennessee found that the Trump DOJ only charged Abrego after he filed a successful civil lawsuit securing his return from El Salvador, a country to which the administration illegally sent him in violation of a court order.
Carroll could bring a similarly successful motion if she’s charged. She could argue that, like Abrego, she’s only being prosecuted for vindicating her rights in civil litigation. Indeed, her hypothetical case could further underscore the administration’s illegal animus because it would follow her successful litigation personally against the president who controls this DOJ.
As the Tennessee judge noted in granting Abrego’s dismissal last week (which the DOJ said it will appeal), the validity of vindictive and selective prosecution claims is separate from the question of whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the underlying charged crimes.
But, mindful that we don’t know what, if anything, will come of this, it’s worth noting for now that it’s far from clear whether the DOJ would be able to prove a criminal case against Carroll beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
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Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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