Trump Prosecutor DENIES Probe as INVESTIGATION BACKFIRES in HIS FACE?!?!

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]After widespread outrage that the Trump Justice Department is targeting Eugene Carol for a criminal investigation, the US attorney in charge of that reported investigation is denying that Eugene Carol is a target. This is his statement. Quote, "In light of widespread reporting and intense media and public interest into the Eene Carol matter in New York, the Chicago US Attorney's Office can confirm that it has not opened and has never opened a criminal investigation into Eene Carol.

[00:00:33]Any claim to the contrary is categorically false." End quote.

[00:00:38]Now, as a journalist, folks are always trained to look very closely into statements appearing to deny something that is politically unpopular. We're going to do that today on All Rise News and Legal AF. But it is also worth mentioning that there is other reporting that the target of the investigation is the person who financed Eugene Carol's litigation in part billionaire Reed Hoffman, a prominent liberal donor and that his charity is one target of the investigation. for this development.

[00:01:14]We're welcoming back onto this show Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor and a media lawyer who's going to dissect that statement that I just read. Mitch, happy Friday. Good to see you again.

[00:01:28]>> Well, thank you for having me.

[00:01:30]Unfortunately, I can't say happy Friday.

[00:01:32]This is yet another really sad day for the Department of Justice and for the Constitution.

[00:01:40]So, I read out that statement at the beginning of our conversation. What jumped out at you in what Bros said?

[00:01:50]>> It's what he didn't say. He's trying to put out a political fire and what he didn't say is that Eene Carol is not a target or a subject of any investigation. Those are the magic words. I've been a criminal defense attorney and a former federal prosecutor for over 30 years. If he had said that, that would mean something. He shouldn't say that under the Justice Manual. Let's start there. But if he wanted to say something definitive, that's what he would have said. Andrew Bros is an extraordinarily welllearned and accomplished criminal attorney. He knows what he should have said if he wanted to actually quell the rumors. What he wanted to do was put out a political fire for um Todd Blanch and Donald Trump. Shame on him.

[00:02:45]>> Let's go into both of those magic words.

[00:02:48]You mentioned target and subject.

[00:02:51]Explain to viewers what the difference between those two words are.

[00:02:54]>> So, there are three things. Starting with target. Target is somebody that the DOJ expects that they will be bringing charges against. It is the worst thing to be before you get indicted. Subject is a person that the DOJ believes is within the scope of the investigation and they haven't decided yet whether that person is going to end up being a target and eventually a defendant or is a mere witness. And the last thing is a witness. A witness is a person who has information, but there is no risk that that person is going to end up as a defendant. Now, of course, during the course of an investigation, a person could conceivably go from a witness to a subject or a target. But that's part of the reason why the DOJ is so loathed to tell somebody that they are a mere witness as opposed to a subject.

[00:03:55]Virtually everybody is a subject until the investigation proceeds.

[00:04:00]>> On the subject of the investigation piece of the puzzle, is that consistent with reports that the Trump DOJ is in fact targeting Eugene Carol's litigation funder Reed Hoffman and his charity.

[00:04:15]>> So, let let's start with a few things.

[00:04:19]Reed Hoffman's charity um donated a small amount of the funding to Eugene Carol. Um at her deposition, she testified that she didn't receive any funding. Two weeks later, she revealed that she did. This was thoroughly vetted by um Judge Kaplan during the original trials um who found that there was nothing going on here that should be brought to the jury's attention. that was affirmed on appeal. So the idea that Reed Hoffman's charity would be in any way investigated here is a direct assault on the First Amendment. So what Andrew Bro said absolutely does not eliminate the possibility that they are investigating um Reed Hoffman's charity and they shouldn't be. They also should not be publicly commenting on who is and is not the subject of an investigation. The Justice Manual says this very clearly.

[00:05:24]Unfortunately, citizens like the people I represent do not have the ability to enforce the Justice Manual against the Department of Justice. But under any other regime, under any other DOJ, Andrew Bros would be up in front of the Office of Professional Responsibility for making these comments about who is and is not under investigation.

[00:05:50]>> As you noted, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals vetted this. The lower court by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan vetted this. All four of the judges because the second circuit was unanimous here found that there was no misrepresentation by Eugene Carol. I'm going to read from the second circuit opinion. Quote, "Miss Carol plausibly represented that she had forgotten about limited outside funding council obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022. An additional discovery did not indicate otherwise. Rather, it showed that Ms. Carol simply was not involved in the matter of who was or who was not funding her litigation costs.

[00:06:34]Hypothetically, let's say that the target of this investigation is Reed Hoffman's C charity, even though, as you noted, uh, four federal judges looked into it, said it was fine. What does this mean for chilling people's access to the courts based on perceived political affiliation?

[00:06:55]So this is why it's a horrible day for the first amendment. There is nothing illegal about a charity giving money to a litigant to um support litigation that it believes should be brought even if the litigation loses. This litigation won. There is nothing criminal to investigate here. The investigation is the criminal offense.

[00:07:26]>> And let's talk about the fact that this was, as I said just a moment ago, four federal judges vetting this, saying it was totally all right. In Bros's district, a federal judge, I don't know if you remember this story when it came out said both in open court and in a written opinion that Greg Bevino lied under oath during a deposition. What does that uh kind of split screen here?

[00:07:51]Four federal judges essentially vetting and giving clearance to one pool of conduct of someone that Trump wants to target and there's an investigation. And on the other instance, there's a federal judge openly saying someone lied under oath who was a part of this administration and no investigation.

[00:08:13]Literally carved into the granite of the Supreme Court is the maxim equal justice under law. Donald Trump might as well sand blast that away because his department can't really call it a department of justice. His department has one set of rules for his supporters and a different set of rules for his enemies. It is ugly. It is disgusting.

[00:08:43]It is antitheical to everything that I believed in when I became a part of the Department of Justice. It is antitheical to everything that everybody from the most far right federalist who I worked with to the most far-left person who I worked with believed in. The Department of Justice is supposed to do its work without fear or favor. Andrew Budro, Todd Blanch are sniffing the throne of Donald Trump. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[00:09:18]>> I think one of the things that caused massive outrage about the reports of the investigation into Eugene Carol, one, you had federal juries finding that Trump sexually abused and defamed Eugene Carol. And on top of that, Eugene Carol, now 82 years old, after successfully vindicating her rights, reportedly finding herself in the crosshairs of a criminal investigation.

[00:09:45]But I don't want people to have lost on them the idea of what the significance would be if Reed Hoffman's charity were targeted. Wouldn't it mean that any number of people like Eugene Carol would have their ability to vindicate their rights in court chilled on a massive scale? Isn't this what we're seeing with the Southern Poverty Law Center? In some ways, couldn't this be more egregious?

[00:10:15]>> So, the process is the punishment here.

[00:10:20]You've got it exactly right. The investigation will cost this charity hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars to defend against. There's no place to go to get that money back if no charges are ever brought. If charges are brought, it will definitely cost millions of dollars to defend. There's no place to go. I It is absolutely a frontal assault on the First Amendment.

[00:10:53]You know, the department that Donald Trump and Todd Blanch are running is bringing injustice to Americans every single day.

[00:11:05]>> And isn't a charity like this broadly known as civil society? And isn't civil society one of the first targets of any authoritarian regime?

[00:11:17]>> Yes. I I mean you this is very simply going beyond working the referees to let's let's cut the brakes on the bus that's supposed to bring the other team to the arena and if they die in a crash fine and if they just end up stuck by the side of the road that's fine but we are eliminating the ability of anybody to stand up against us. Thank you so much, Mitch Epner, uh, again, not a happy Friday in terms of this news, but for breaking down really important, uh, the significance of these sometimes puzzling developments and always outrageous developments.

[00:12:02]>> Thank you.

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