A documentary about E. Jean Carroll opened in New York cinemas just one week before the Justice Department launched a reported criminal inquiry into whether Carroll committed perjury during her civil lawsuits against President Trump — and the film’s director says the timing is no coincidence.
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Carroll, 82, committed perjury in a 2022 deposition where she stated she had received no outside funding for her lawsuit, though it was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some of her legal fees and expenses. The investigation is centered more on Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, than on Carroll herself, according to a source familiar with the DOJ’s operations. One day after CNN first reported the probe, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois issued a statement saying his office had not opened, and had never opened, a criminal investigation into Carroll specifically.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has already rejected Trump’s perjury argument directly, finding no evidence that Carroll was personally involved in securing the funding, interacted with the funder, or had knowledge of where the money came from before her October 2022 deposition.
Ivy Meeropol, director of Ask E. Jean — a documentary that premiered at Telluride last year and began its theatrical run at New York’s IFC Center this month — called the reports alarming but predictable. “Unbelievable, yet not surprising,” she told Deadline. “It’s just pure vindictiveness is how I see it.” Meeropol noted that she published a New York Times op-ed on May 20 describing the challenges of making the film under Trump’s political shadow. “And then a week later, lo and behold,” she said, inviting readers to draw their own conclusions.
Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and longtime Trump critic, called the probe an attempt to silence those who challenge the president. “He is investigating me because I supported E Jean’s lawsuit — where a jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her, and a court of appeals upheld the decision,” Hoffman wrote on X.
A federal appeals court upheld Carroll’s $83.3 million defamation judgment in September 2025, ruling that Trump’s attacks on her were “extraordinary and unprecedented” and that the steep punitive damages award did not exceed the bounds of reasonableness. Trump has not paid out a dime, and the cases now appear headed to the Supreme Court.
The documentary itself is finding an audience amid the turbulence. Meeropol said packed matinees prompted IFC Center to extend the film’s run, and it has since expanded to more than 40 theaters nationwide.
