{"id":151,"date":"2026-05-28T23:19:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=151"},"modified":"2026-05-28T23:19:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T23:19:34","slug":"the-brazenness-of-dojs-reported-investigation-of-e-jean-carroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=151","title":{"rendered":"The Brazenness of DOJ\u2019s Reported Investigation of E. Jean Carroll"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an edition of <\/i>The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i>Sign up for it here.<\/i><\/small><\/p>\n

Read more The U.S. Is Proving the Case for the WHO<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

No White House is immune to hypocrisy. What makes the Trump administration\u2019s approach to justice so astonishing is not just the depth of the hypocrisy but its brazenness.<\/p>\n

Last night, CNN reported that the Department of Justice is pursuing a criminal investigation against E. Jean Carroll, the writer who has accused Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s, and won nearly $90 million in civil judgments against him. The probe reportedly focuses on whether Carroll committed perjury during her testimony related to two civil lawsuits against him, both of which she won.<\/p>\n

The news comes less than 10 days after Trump\u2014putatively acting as a private citizen\u2014announced an agreement with that same Justice Department to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to reward his political allies, potentially including those who sacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of government power to target individuals or entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, or ideological reasons should not be tolerated by any Administration,\u201d the DOJ official Trent McCotter said while announcing the settlement. That quote came in a written statement, which mercifully freed him from having to keep a straight face while saying it. In truth, using government power to target individuals for political and personal reasons <\/i>seems like an apt description of the probe into Carroll as well as many of the Justice Department\u2019s steps in recent months.<\/p>\n

Carroll\u2019s lawsuits infuriated Trump. The president has been accused of sexual assault by many women; he has denied all accusations, although he also boasts about nonconsensual groping in the infamous Access Hollywood <\/i>tape. Carroll, however, brought a case where a court actually found him liable for sexual abuse. Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that although \u201cCarroll failed to prove that she was \u2018raped\u2019 within the meaning of the New York Penal Law,\u201d the jury found that Trump \u201cdid exactly that\u201d in the common understanding of \u201crape.\u201d Trump insulted Carroll repeatedly on Truth Social as well as on the stand during one of the trials. He insisted before the trial that he did not know her, despite a picture showing them together, and said she was not his \u201ctype,\u201d but when shown the photograph in a deposition, he mistook her for his ex-wife Marla Maples.<\/p>\n

Trump couldn\u2019t beat Carroll in court (though ongoing appeals efforts mean he has not yet had to pay up), but he does have a Justice Department that has shown a willingness to bring preposterous cases against his political enemies, and an acting attorney general who appears determined to prove he can succeed at political retribution where his fired predecessor did not. (CNN reported that Todd Blanche, who holds that title, was recused from this case because of his previous work as Trump\u2019s personal lawyer in Carroll litigation.)<\/p>\n

The accusation of perjury centers on financial support for Carroll\u2019s legal efforts from Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn co-founder and major donor to liberal causes. In a 2022 deposition, Carroll said she did not have any outside support for her litigation, but two weeks later, her lawyers told a judge and Trump\u2019s attorneys that they had secured funding from a nonprofit Hoffman leads.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of reasons to be skeptical of claims of perjury here. First, Kaplan, the judge overseeing the civil cases, already considered and dismissed concerns over the testimony. Carroll\u2019s lawyers said she had no communication with Hoffman or the group, but Kaplan allowed Trump\u2019s team to question her once more. The judge then concluded that Carroll\u2019s credibility was not in doubt and barred Trump\u2019s attorneys from questioning her about the funding during the subsequent trial.<\/p>\n

Second, the DOJ investigation is reportedly being overseen not by a U.S. attorney in New York, where the trial occurred, but by Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney in Chicago. Although this is legal, it is unusual (or it was until this Trump administration, during which DOJ has repeatedly assigned faraway offices to handle political cases). The track record of the Chicago U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office is a red flag of its own: The office was recently in the news when prosecutors dismissed the only remaining misdemeanor charges against members of the \u201cBroadview Six,\u201d a group of people arrested at a protest at an ICE facility last fall. They had already moved to dismiss felony charges, which turned out to be a result of misconduct by prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Read more A \u2018Promising Democracy\u2019 That Can\u2019t Stop Fighting Itself<\/a><\/p>\n

April Perry, the federal judge presiding over the case, said she was \u201cincredibly shocked\u201d by prosecutors\u2019 conduct during grand-jury proceedings. \u201cI have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts,\u201d she said. Prosecutors personally vouched for the credibility of evidence before a grand jury, which is impermissible. When they failed to get an indictment, they excused grand jurors who voted against charges and tried again. They also spoke with grand jurors outside of a courtroom. Later, they redacted transcripts to hide it all from Perry.<\/p>\n

Perry summoned Boutros to her courtroom, where she scolded him. \u201cYour sole goal is to do justice. Your client is justice itself,\u201d she told him. \u201cI do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing. That trust has been broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any investigation into Carroll faces the same problem: Boutros and the Trump Justice Department as a whole no longer have the benefit of the doubt that their actions are fair and impartial, and that they aren\u2019t just attacking Trump\u2019s enemies, real or perceived. Even if the probe sputters, a spurious criminal investigation is a form of extrajudicial punishment. Defendants must spend time and money on attorneys; the Southern Poverty Law Center also recently found itself cut off from financial channels because it is facing a dubious indictment.<\/p>\n

Trump ran for office decrying what he alleged was the \u201cweaponization\u201d of the Justice Department, and he promised to reverse it. But what was apparent then and is beyond dispute now is that Trump had no problem with politicized justice\u2014he just wanted it on his side. The Broadview and Carroll cases show just how effectively he has achieved that.<\/p>\n

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