The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who won tens of millions of dollars in civil judgments against President Donald Trump, to determine whether she committed perjury during testimony in those cases. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago is leading the probe, Breitbart News reported, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter.

The investigation centers on Carroll's sworn testimony across two civil lawsuits she brought against Trump, one alleging sexual assault, the other alleging defamation. Neither the DOJ nor Carroll's attorney, Robbie Kaplan, responded to requests for comment.

For years, Carroll's legal campaign against Trump was treated by much of the media as a settled matter of moral clarity. Juries returned verdicts. Damages were awarded. But a federal criminal probe into the accuser's own testimony raises a question the press largely declined to ask: Was the testimony that underpinned those verdicts truthful?

What the civil cases produced, and what they left unresolved

Carroll first alleged that Trump raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She filed a defamation lawsuit in 2019 after Trump publicly denied the accusation and questioned her credibility.

In May 2023, a jury found that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her, but notably did not find that he raped her. A second jury, in January 2024, found Trump liable for defamation and ordered $83.3 million in damages.

Trump has consistently maintained he never met Carroll. He remains in ongoing legal battles with her.

The civil verdicts generated wall-to-wall coverage. Carroll became a fixture on cable news. Her attorney Kaplan was celebrated in progressive legal circles. But the underlying testimony, the foundation of those verdicts, is now the subject of a federal criminal inquiry.

A probe, not yet a prosecution

It is worth noting what the investigation is and what it is not. The Washington Examiner reported on the DOJ opening the criminal investigation into Carroll. Reuters, meanwhile, cautioned that the launch of the probe may not necessarily result in charges being brought against her.

That distinction matters. An investigation is not an indictment. But it is also not nothing. Federal perjury probes are not launched casually. They require a credible basis for suspicion that sworn testimony was knowingly false.

The specific testimony statements under scrutiny have not been publicly identified. The DOJ has not explained what prompted the investigation or disclosed its legal basis. Those gaps leave significant open questions, but they do not diminish the seriousness of the inquiry itself.

The funding behind the lawsuits draws its own scrutiny

The DOJ's interest in Carroll does not appear to exist in isolation. The Washington Times reported that federal investigators are also probing a billionaire Democrat's nonprofit that bankrolled the sexual assault suit against Trump. That detail adds another dimension to the Carroll saga, one that extends beyond her personal credibility and into the financial and political infrastructure that supported the litigation.

For conservative observers who long suspected that Carroll's lawsuits were less about justice and more about political warfare, the funding angle will confirm what they believed all along. For those who championed the cases, the probe will be framed as retaliation. But the DOJ either has a factual basis for investigating perjury or it does not. The investigation will answer that question on its own terms.

Trump's legal entanglements have long been a magnet for political actors seeking to relitigate old grievances through the courts. The Carroll cases fit that pattern, civil lawsuits brought years after the alleged events, amplified by sympathetic media coverage, and funded by deep-pocketed allies.

What the Chicago office signals

The decision to assign the investigation to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, rather than to prosecutors in New York, where the civil cases were tried, is itself notable. Federal investigations are sometimes routed to offices outside the jurisdiction of the underlying events to avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of political entanglement.

Chicago's involvement suggests the DOJ wants distance from the New York legal ecosystem that produced the Carroll verdicts. Whether that reflects institutional caution or something more pointed remains to be seen.

The New York Post reported that the Chicago U.S. Attorney stated Carroll is not under investigation by that office, adding a layer of confusion to the public picture. The discrepancy between the initial reports and the Chicago office's statement has not been fully explained.

The broader pattern

Carroll's cases were part of a broader legal offensive against Trump that accelerated after he left office in 2021. Civil suits, state prosecutions, and federal charges piled up in rapid succession. Many of those cases have since stalled, been dismissed, or collapsed under the weight of their own procedural problems.

The Carroll verdicts stood out because they produced enormous dollar figures and dramatic headlines. But dollar figures and headlines are not the same as unimpeachable evidence. If the DOJ has reason to believe Carroll lied under oath, the entire foundation of those verdicts comes into question, not because a jury got it wrong, but because the testimony it relied on may have been false.

Perjury is a serious federal crime. It strikes at the integrity of the judicial process itself. Courts cannot function if witnesses lie under oath and face no consequences. That principle applies equally whether the accused perjurer is a political figure, a private citizen, or a magazine columnist who became a cause célèbre.

What comes next

The investigation is at an early stage. No charges have been filed. No indictment has been returned. Carroll has not been arrested. The probe may ultimately conclude without action.

But the mere existence of a federal perjury investigation reframes the Carroll-Trump saga in ways that her supporters will find deeply uncomfortable. For years, the narrative was simple: a brave woman stood up to a powerful man, and the courts vindicated her. That narrative now has a federal asterisk attached to it.

The $83.3 million verdict. The cable news victory laps. The magazine profiles. All of it rested on Carroll's sworn word. If that word turns out to have been false, the people who built a political movement around her testimony will have some explaining to do.

Accountability is supposed to run in every direction. The DOJ just reminded everyone of that.