Overview
- The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll that was reported on Thursday and was initiated by Andrew S. Boutros, a federal prosecutor appointed during the Trump administration.
- Prosecutors are examining whether Carroll lied under oath in a 2022 deposition when she said no one else was paying her legal fees after it emerged that Reid Hoffman’s nonprofit paid some of her costs.
- Todd Blanche recused himself from the matter because he worked on Trump’s appeals, and other senior DOJ officials are overseeing the inquiry with parts of the work referred to federal prosecutors in Chicago.
- No charges have been filed and the DOJ has not commented publicly, with reporting describing the investigation as developing and likely to produce further filings or court fights over evidence and procedure.
- The probe ties to larger questions about third‑party litigation funding, the enforcement threshold for proving perjury, and critics’ concerns that the DOJ under Blanche is prioritizing cases linked to President Trump.