The US Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into a woman found by a jury to have been raped by Donald Trump, CNN reports.
The investigation is centred on whether E Jean Carroll committed perjury while testifying against Trump.
Carroll sued Trump twice, once for raping her in a New York dRepartment store, and again for defaming her.
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But prosecutors in the Trump administration believe she lied when she testified she had received no outside funding in her lawsuits.
It was later revealed billionaire Reid Hoffman paid some of her legal fees.
Hoffman made his fortune as the co-founder of social media site LinkedIn.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance brushed off the threat of the investigation.
“There is not a grand jury in America that will indict E Jean Carroll,” she said.
The case has been opened by prosecutors in Chicago, where Hoffman’s non-profit is based.
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Trump has been ordered to pay Carroll $115 million after a New York jury found that he raped her in the mid-1990s.
A jury awarded Carroll the immense payout after she successfully sued him for defamation.
But Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to intervene so he wouldn’t have to pay her.
His lawyers argue that because his remarks about her were made when he was president, he was protected by presidential immunity.
Carroll’s defamation argument hinged on the president’s accusation that she wasn’t telling the truth when she came forward with her rape allegation.
Because the statute of limitations for a sexual assault charge had passed, Carroll sued him in civil court and won.
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In 2019, Trump denied ever knowing Carroll and said she “wasn’t his type”.
But when presented with a photograph of Trump speaking with Carroll, he mistook her as his former wife Marla Maples.
A jury found she was telling the truth when she alleged Trump raped her in the dressing room of a New York department store.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
