E. Jean Carroll accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault – and won.
Now, the U.S. Justice Department is launching a criminal investigation into her, CNN exclusively reported, citing disclosures from multiple sources familiar with the proceedings.
The probe centers around perjury claims against Carroll, insinuating that she lied in her two lawsuits against Trump – the one from 2019 centered on the attack itself, and the one in 2022, when she added defamation charges and more to the docket. CNN says the prosecutors’ move isn’t about the assault itself but rather whether Carroll failed to disclose that a portion of legal fees were covered by billionaire Reid Hoffman.
Carroll and her representatives have declined to comment, as of publication.
The former journalist is one of Trump’s most prominent accusers (of which there are at least 28). She alleges that, in 1996, Trump abused her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City after they happened upon each other during a shopping trip.
Carroll successfully sued him in civil court over the attack, twice – despite Trump’s repeated denial of wrongdoing, insistence that Carroll wasn’t his “type” and claims that she fabricated the matter to boost book sales – winning a sum of $88.3 million in damages. As of late 2025, Trump was still directly attempting to use various levers of power to reverse the decision, even asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene last September. He remains unsuccessful.
The DOJ case against Carroll, 82, is the latest in a string of investigations into Trump’s perceived enemies by the government entity, an effort that had been spearheaded by former Attorney General Pam Bondi until her ouster – which followed failures to convert probes into the likes of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James into convictions.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has taken up that mantle since Bondi’s departure earlier this year – though he has recused himself from this particular investigation into Carroll, as he was Trump’s personal attorney throughout his appeals of her civil cases.
For Carroll’s part, she says she remains committed to simply ensuring the public knows what Trump did, and what he’s capable of. In a June 2025 CNN interview, she even disclosed plans to give the settlement cash – should he ever pay up. “The last thing I care about is money. The first thing I care about is people knowing the truth.”
