Carroll has sued Trump twice. She first alleged he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and second alleged he defamed her in his denial of the alleged sexual assault. Trump denies her claims. The DOJ’s investigation into Carroll centers on whether she committed perjury during a 2022 deposition, during which she claimed she was not receiving outside money for her cases against Trump, according to CNN.
Records released in 2023 showed that Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, bankrolled Carroll’s defamation and sexual assault cases against Trump. Hoffman, a Democratic donor, made headlines for his financial ties to Carroll at the time due to Carroll’s testimony that no one else was paying her legal fees for her.
In October 2022, Alina Habba, Trump’s personal attorney in Carroll’s second lawsuit, asked during a deposition, “Is anyone else paying your legal fees, Ms. Carroll?” Carroll subsequently responded, “No.” Habba argued in a 2023 court filing, once the contributions from Hoffman’s nonprofit came to light, that Carroll “apparently perjured herself during her deposition.”
“In short, Plaintiff apparently perjured herself during her deposition; her counsel sat by and allowed her to do so, knowing full well that her testimony was false; and then they conspired to conceal the truth for nearly six months, only to disclose it on the eve of trial,” Habba argued after the Hoffman funding came to light in 2023.
