hoffman is at the center of a dispute over a reported federal inquiry into E. Jean Carroll. Andrew Boutros, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said Thursday evening that his office “has not opened — and has never opened — a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll.”
The denial came after multiple news reports said Chicago federal prosecutors had opened an investigation that investigators were examining for possible perjury allegations. The reports this week said the Justice Department was scrutinizing Carroll’s civil-court statement that no one else was paying her legal fees.
Boutros denies Chicago investigation
Boutros’ statement directly contradicted the earlier reporting. A person familiar with the matter initially told the on Thursday morning that investigators were focused on Carroll, then later clarified that the actual focus was a nonprofit that had helped fund her case.
That distinction matters for the scope of the inquiry: if the target is Carroll, the question is her testimony in civil litigation; if the target is the nonprofit, the investigation shifts to how her legal bills were financed. Thursday’s denial from the U.S. attorney’s office said only that no criminal case had been opened against Carroll in Chicago.
Reid Hoffman nonprofit reports
Multiple news organizations reported on Thursday that the investigation was actually centered on Hoffman’s nonprofit. The reports said it became public that a Chicago-based organization backed by Reid Hoffman had helped fund Carroll’s case, and Trump’s lawyers in the civil case accused Carroll of concealing that information.
The dispute sits against a record already shaped by two civil juries. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, and she was awarded $5 million. Another jury awarded her $83.3 million in 2024 in a defamation case related to Trump’s social media posts about her.
Carroll verdicts and legal fees
The new reporting also turned on a narrow factual point from the civil litigation: whether Carroll said no one else was paying her legal fees. That statement became the basis for the reports that followed the Justice Department inquiry.
For Carroll and Hoffman, the immediate effect is a public fight over what, exactly, Chicago prosecutors were investigating and whether the reporting that linked the office to Carroll was accurate. The federal denial leaves the nonprofit angle at the center of the story, rather than Carroll herself.
