A criminal investigation involving the woman who accused the president of sexual assault also reportedly targets a billionaire who helped fund her legal expenses.
According to Axios, the Department of Justice is examining a nonprofit associated with billionaire Reid Hoffman, 58, over donations that were partially used to support journalist E. Jean Carroll’s civil lawsuit against President Donald Trump, 79.
The report comes after CNN revealed on Wednesday that the DOJ is seeking to determine whether Carroll, 82, committed perjury during her two civil lawsuits against Trump.
A source familiar with the DOJ’s operations told Axios that the investigation is “related to E. Jean Carroll and her deposition, but she is not the subject of the investigation,” and that instead, Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, is at the center of the probe.
“The investigation is ongoing,” the source said, adding, “but as of right now, it would be inaccurate to say that she is being investigated.”
On Friday, the top federal prosecutor in Chicago—where media outlets reported the DOJ case involving Carroll is being handled—denied reports that his office had opened an investigation into Carroll, but did not address Hoffman.
Carroll’s two successful lawsuits against Trump resulted in $88.3 million in total damages. One case involved allegations that Trump sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s, which he denied, saying, “she’s not my type.”
The other centered on claims that he defamed her in 2019 after publicly denying the allegations.
The perjury probe stems from Carroll’s 2022 deposition, in which she said she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, but it was later reported that some legal fees and expenses were covered by Hoffman.
The Washington Post reported that people familiar with the probe say the investigation is focused on whether American Future Republic, an organization that largely funds left-leaning causes, encouraged Carroll to give false testimony during her deposition.
When questions about funding arose in 2023, as Trump sought to delay the trial, Hoffman’s philanthropic adviser, Dmitri Mehlhorn, said that Hoffman’s nonprofit had previously made a grant to support a different public interest lawsuit handled by the firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink, which later took on Carroll’s case.
“We had no prior knowledge at the time of the original grant that our funding would go to support her case in particular,” Mehlhorn told The New York Times.
Hoffman, who is the co-founder of LinkedIn and has a net worth of $2.7 billion according to Forbes, is a major donor to Democratic causes and a longtime Trump critic.
In November last year, he helped fund a commercial by the anti-trafficking coalition World Without Exploitation calling for the full release of files related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, in which Trump appears multiple times.
Trump singled out Hoffman, along with Democratic Party donor George Soros, as part of the “radical left” in September after being asked by a reporter which names came to mind that might warrant investigation under his presidential memorandum on countering “domestic terrorism and organized political violence.”
Earlier this month, Trump won a delay in his defamation case, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling he did not have to pay the $83.3 million judgment awarded to Carroll in January 2024 for defamation because he intends to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The alleged case against Hoffman is part of a broader set of cases in which the department has used its powers to investigate the president’s perceived opponents.
Another example is the DOJ’s second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, 65, over an Instagram post showing seashells on a North Carolina beach, which Trump and his allies allege threatened the life of the president.
“As a nation, I think that every American should be just really p---ed off tonight, because what the hell is the Department of Justice doing?” Ryan Goodman, editor-in-chief of Just Security and a former Special Counsel to the Defense Department, told CNN.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Hoffman and the DOJ for comment.
