Journalist E. Jean Carroll, left, won two lawsuits against President Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation. Now, the Department of Justice is investigating her for alleged perjury. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
May 28 (UPI) -- The Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who sued President Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation, multiple outlets reported Thursday.
The investigation is about whether Carroll committed perjury in her two civil suits against Trump, according to CNN, ABC News and CBS News.
Carroll won two civil suits against Trump. One alleged that he sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the 1990s and another one was for defamation in 2019, when he denied the assault and said she made up the assault to boost book sales. In the assault case, Carroll was awarded $5 million, and in the defamation case, she was awarded $83 million.
The investigation is into a 2022 deposition in which Carroll said she received no outside funding for the suit. Later, it came to light that billionaire Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, paid some of her legal fees and expenses.
