Trump Accuser Targeted with Criminal Investigation After Court Victory

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Donald Trump is now authorizing his Department of Justice to investigate the woman that he was found guilty of sexually assaulting.

[00:00:16]Guilty in a civil court.

[00:00:18]E. Jean Carroll.

[00:00:21]Beautiful mess.

[00:00:23]This is a hell of a story.

[00:00:25]But remember her? Headlines.

[00:00:28]Top news story of the day for weeks.

[00:00:33]She's now being criminally investigated.

[00:00:36]Here's the story.

[00:00:38]>> The Justice Department launching a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the magazine columnist who successfully sued President Trump for sexual abuse and defamation. Sources tell ABC News the investigation is allegedly centered around whether Carroll committed perjury during her civil lawsuits against Trump. Carroll was awarded a $5 million civil judgment in 2023 that found Trump liable for sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defaming her. Last November, the president asked the Supreme Court to overturn the case. And earlier this month, Trump won a delay in another defamation case in which he was ordered to pay Carroll more than $83 million for defaming her by calling her a liar and her claim a hoax. Now, the Justice Department going even further, targeting Carroll directly. The new investigation just the latest in a long string of actions directed at the president's rivals. Just last month, the Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey. The president has also been calling for federal prosecutors to use the criminal justice system to go after other political opponents, including former Fed Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, and former National Security Advisor, John Bolton.

[00:02:00]>> This is why you're paying more for gas.

[00:02:02]This is why you're paying more for groceries. This is why higher education is nowhere near affordable.

[00:02:13]This is why the challenges that you face today will not be solved by this man.

[00:02:20]Because he has an agenda to simply do one thing.

[00:02:26]And that is to service his retribution list. And now it comes to the woman who successfully sued him, got a conviction liability standard.

[00:02:42]He doesn't want to pay her what is due to her based on the court of law.

[00:02:49]And now he's utilizing the awesome power of government in order to do what?

[00:02:57]To place her under criminal investigation. Let me give you the details of this. According to CNN, this Justice Department has decided to launch a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, former magazine columnist, who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault.

[00:03:17]The investigation is focused on well, did E. Jean Carroll commit perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the current president of the United States. One alleging he sexually abused Carroll in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.

[00:03:41]And a second for defaming her when in 2019 he repeatedly denied the assault, said she wasn't his type, and claimed she made it up to boost sales of a book.

[00:03:56]So, what's the prosecution's theory?

[00:03:59]So, the prosecutor's theory hinges on a 2022 deposition statement by E. Jean Carroll, who's now 82 years of age, that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit.

[00:04:15]Though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some legal fees and expenses in a 2022 videotape deposition.

[00:04:26]Carroll told then Trump attorney Alina Habba that no one else was paying for her legal fees.

[00:04:34]But 2 weeks before the trial, Carroll's attorneys informed the judge and Trump's lawyers that they secured funding from Hoffman's nonprofit organization.

[00:04:46]Carroll's lawyers say she never met nor had any conversations with anyone anyone associated with the nonprofit.

[00:04:56]Attorney Habba said in court at the time that Carroll's team conspired to conceal the truth for near nearly 6 months. In quote. Now, let's keep the main thing the main thing.

[00:05:12]This is actually not germane to the fact or facts in question.

[00:05:19]The fact or facts in question are related to a sexual assault or a series of assaults and then related to perjury, according to the Justice Department, due to Trump being convicted not only of the underlying issue, that's your targeted fact, and also for defaming E. Jean Carroll.

[00:05:44]In In words, even if you get a conviction from E. Jean Carroll on this issue, it's not material to the issue of Trump's conviction in a civil court.

[00:05:59]It doesn't overturn his.

[00:06:01]So, why is he going after her? Well, it's punitive. It's punishment is what it's for.

[00:06:10]This is not to exonerate Trump. This is not even to fulfill some type of sentiment of justice.

[00:06:20]It's all because she had the audacity to tell somebody what happened to her.

[00:06:30]There's more.

[00:06:32]The judge permitted Trump or Trump's attorney to question Carroll again in a deposition. This is called a remedy or a cure.

[00:06:44]The judge permitted Trump's attorney to question Carroll again in a deposition, which has not been made public.

[00:06:52]When the trial began 2 weeks later, Judge Lewis Kaplan said he saw no issue with Carroll's credibility and blocked the lawyers from asking about Hoffman's funding.

[00:07:13]Carroll's team declined to comment for this story.

[00:07:16]Attempts to reach Hoffman on Wednesday were unsuccessful.

[00:07:22]So, let me break this down outside of the legalese and the very nuanced and measured answers.

[00:07:30]You have a sealed deposition.

[00:07:34]The judge likely allowed for a cure or remedy to something that may have been misspoke on record.

[00:07:43]You can make a mistake in a deposition.

[00:07:45]If you make a meaningful effort to correct the testimony on the record, and you do so, there's no harm, no foul.

[00:07:53]It sounds like that's exactly what happened. Then her attorneys instructed her not only do they need to inform the court, but she needs to correct the testimony on record.

[00:08:05]It seems as if this judge allowed both to happen.

[00:08:08]Sealed the additional issue at deposition when she came back to testify a second time.

[00:08:19]So, there's no actual crime.

[00:08:23]Because a crime would mean criminal intent.

[00:08:28]The only criminal intent is from the Justice Department that the good taxpayers of this country are paying for.

[00:08:39]There's more.

[00:08:40]Under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and this is another complication.

[00:08:46]The department has pushed to speed up Trump's campaign of retribution.

[00:08:53]But, you see, Todd Blanche has been allegedly recused from this matter because he worked as one of Trump's personal attorneys on the Carol appeals.

[00:09:09]That's according to a source familiar with the matter.

[00:09:13]Blanche has not attended meetings.

[00:09:16]He has not been involved in discussions allegedly about the investigations.

[00:09:22]And the investigation is being overseen by other officials in the Deputy Attorney General's office.

[00:09:33]Now, the Justice Department I I I don't want us to get distracted on this thing.

[00:09:41]I don't give a damn, honestly, if she technically lied or not. I don't give a damn if she actually misspoke or not. I don't care.

[00:09:48]Has nothing to do with what happened to her.

[00:09:55]Because the issues of accusation are not being questioned.

[00:10:01]Is who paid some of your legal fees in order for you to have lawyers.

[00:10:07]I don't give a damn.

[00:10:09]And honestly, you shouldn't either.

[00:10:11]And here's why.

[00:10:14]Out of the thousands of depositions that take place in this country every single day, the mighty hand of the Justice Department saw fit to reach into the haystack and retrieve the needle of a statement made by Ms. Carroll.

[00:10:40]And highlight that needle and tell everybody to focus on this needle and pay no attention to the haystack they had to go through in order to get it.

[00:10:52]Is that the way you want your tax dollars to be utilized? Because I promise you there are real crimes happening in this nation.

[00:10:59]I guarantee you there are individuals, due to the lack of manpower and resources, getting away with things they ought not.

[00:11:12]Carroll is still um embroiled in multiple lawsuits, legal battles with the president. Jury's awarded Carroll millions of dollars in damages, which Trump is appealing.

[00:11:25]Trump has appealed the 5 million sexual abuse case judgment to the Supreme Court and has pledged to do the same with the $83 million case. defamation case.

[00:11:39]The Supreme Court has deferred its decision on whether to take up Trump's appeal 12 different times. Hot potato. They don't want to touch it.

[00:11:51]The most recent deferral was made Wednesday morning in a different case, the current president of the United States unsuccessfully requested the Justice Department to join the case as a defendant so that he could argue he is immune from liability.

[00:12:11]An appeals court panel of judges said the argument was raised too late in the legal process.

[00:12:18]Talk about utilizing the office for more than self-enrichment.

[00:12:22]All right. Uh being is a hell of a thing. A criminally investigating the woman who successfully got a guilty conviction from Donald Trump.

[00:12:33]Technically multiple times in the civil court. Um I would assume that even MAGA would have some issues with this.

[00:12:40]>> You would assume that operating under a world that you still operate under logic under the accumulation of facts that lead people to logical conclusions. We crazily don't live in that world anymore and I would guess it is quite likely what's going to happen is what seems to always happen is they will buy the art of distraction that Trump is so brilliant at and just run with it. And every talking point will become that minutia.

[00:13:15]That little detail and the forest will be completely lost for the trees as seems to be the great skill of MAGA world.

[00:13:24]And it's no longer about this political side versus that political side. It's no longer about a political argument. It hasn't been that for a very, very long time. It's about right and wrong and obvious, egregious, horrible behavior that is being somehow smoke and mirrors to something completely not germane to the issue and people run with it because of a blind loyalty that does not seem to wane. Aside from a few percentage points that maybe trickle here and there, it is a loyalty that is really becoming frightening and weaponization of our justice system used to be even the hint of it.

[00:14:18]A meeting, a request, a moment was egregious beyond belief and it would be shut down.

[00:14:24]And now, it's just part of doing business. And I fear that so many of our norms are far eroded already. So far that I I don't even know if in a future administration we can get them back.

[00:14:40]>> Well, I definitely believe, I know that this thing swings back to a righteousness.

[00:14:50]Um the issue that we have before before us, a lot of Democrats, man, are not even concerned.

[00:15:00]A lot of those who are in Congress, they don't have a proper reaction. And what I'm looking at now, I'm looking at how outraged are you by things happening against marginalized groups or historically marginalized groups? How outraged are you at Trump utilizing his office for personal benefit and gain at the expense of the little person, per se. How outraged are you? And if you're not outraged, I could give a damn about what you're supporting, cuz you have no passion.

[00:15:29]And if you have no passion, you can't speak up for me. You have no passion, you cannot speak down on oil tycoon. If you have no passion, you definitely cannot um win your way in a room of Fortune 500 CEOs, if you have no passion. All right, we'll bring you updates as they come. Very sad situation indeed.