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'Craven and Corrupt': DOJ Launches Criminal Probe Into E. Jean Carroll, Who Won Civil Cases Against Trump
"It never ends with Trump and his revenge tour and actual weaponization of the DOJ," said journalist Mehdi Hasan.
May 28, 2026
President Donald Trump appeared to be out for what one human rights advocate called "outrageous revenge" late Wednesday as it was reported that the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who won two civil judgments against the president after accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation.
CNN first reported that, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation, the DOJ is investigating whether Carroll committed perjury in her civil lawsuits against Trump.
The probe reportedly centers on a 2022 deposition Carroll gave in which she said she received no outside funding for her lawsuit. It was later revealed that Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn who has been critical of the president, paid some legal fees and expenses.
Before Carroll's sexual abuse case went to trial in 2022, Trump's lawyers told the court that the disclosure of Hoffman's funding raised "significant questions" about Carroll's credibility and accused her of trying to "conceal the truth."
Carroll's lawyers countered that the plaintiff had nothing to do with obtaining the outside funding and that Hoffman's decision to provide financial support was irrelevant to Carroll's accusation that Trump had sexually abused her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990s.
A jury awarded her a $5 million judgment in the case, and in 2024 Carroll won $83.3 million in damages in a separate civil case in which she accused Trump of repeatedly defaming her when he said she had filed her first case against him in an effort to sell books and was perpetrating a "hoax."
A three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously rejected Trump's request for a new trial in the sexual abuse case, saying the president had “not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings.”
An appeals court panel also upheld the $83.3 million defamation judgment, but this month Trump was permitted to delay his payment for now, as he has appealed to the US Supreme Court, asserting that he has "absolute immunity" for disparaging comments about Carroll that he made while he was president.
The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that Trump has "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while he is in office.
The investigation into Carroll is being conducted by US Attorney Andrew Boutros in the Northern District of Illinois; a nonprofit associated with Hoffman is based in Chicago.
The probe appeared to be Trump's latest effort to use the DOJ to enact revenge on his political enemies, a number of observers said late Wednesday.
"He’s using the power of the DOJ to go after his own victims," said US Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). "It’s a vile attack on the rule of law and a disgusting insult to victims everywhere."
Last month, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced an indictment of former FBI chief James Comey, a longtime opponent of Trump. They accused him of “knowingly and willfully [making] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon” the president; a year earlier, Comey had posted a photo on Instagram of seashells grouped together in a pattern, reading, "86 47." The indictment garnered criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike.
Federal prosecutors also indicted Comey as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James last year, in cases that were thrown out by a judge. James won a $450 million judgment against Trump, plus interest, in a civil fraud case against Trump and his business in 2022.
At the news of the investigation into Carroll, journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo News wrote on social media, "Sheesh, it never ends with Trump and his revenge tour and actual weaponization of the DOJ."
Elisa Batista, campaign director at the women's rights group UltraViolet, said, "We believe E. Jean Carroll, just as a jury of her peers did."
“Donald Trump has been caught bragging about assaulting women, and was found liable for sexual abuse,” said Batista. "The DOJ’s investigation is nothing more than another craven and corrupt attempt by Trump to silence survivors and his personal opponents.”
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The Tragic Transformation of Todd Blanche
Someday Blanche’s progeny may ask him why—as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States—he helped a rogue president run roughshod over the rule of law.
May 03, 2026
During President Donald Trump’s first term, he bemoaned the failure of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to protect him from the Justice Department’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to elect Trump in 2016.
“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump erupted, referring to his notorious former fixer who had also been Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man during the 1950s Senate hearings into communist activity. Trump later fired Sessions.
For a time, Attorney General William Barr was the answer. But the two men parted ways after Barr told him repeatedly that no evidence supported Trump’s obsessive claims that voter fraud had cost him the 2020 election.
In Trump’s second term, it appeared that Pam Bondi fit the bill. She tried valiantly to meet Trump’s every legal need. She transformed the Justice Department into Trump’s personal tool, prosecuted Trump’s perceived enemies, and tried to protect Trump from the fallout over the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors.
Bondi's Deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.
But she bungled the Epstein files. She tried but failed to prosecute two key targets on Trump’s vengeance list: New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. She savaged her own reputation but could not save her job.
Bondi’s deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.
From Democrat to Trump Enabler
Blanche began his legal career in 1999 as a paralegal in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Working days and attending Brooklyn Law School at night, he graduated in 2003. After a stint as an associate in the Davis Polk firm and two federal court clerkships, he returned in 2006 to the US Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor and eventually became co-chief of the violent crimes division.
In 2014, Blanche joined the WilmerHale firm as a partner before moving to another big New York firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft. In 2019, he represented Paul Manafort on state mortgage fraud charges similar to federal crimes for which Manafort had already been convicted in 2018. (Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020). Blanche got the state law claims dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.
But in April 2023, Cadwalader balked when Blanche, then a registered Democrat, sought to represent Trump in the hush-money case involving payments to Stormy Daniels. So Blanche left Cadwalader and started his own firm. The jury eventually convicted Trump, but for Blanche it began a profitable relationship that generated over $3 million from Trump’s Save America PAC in the new firm’s first year alone.
Blanche went on to represent Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and in the election obstruction case involving Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. In 2024, Blanche switched his registration from Democrat to Republican.
Trump’s Latest Roy Cohn
Blanche is no longer Trump’s personal attorney, but you wouldn’t know it from his conduct in office.
Although he was the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, in July 2025 he tried to quiet the MAGA backlash over Trump’s breach of an election pledge to release the Justice Department’s Epstein files. Blanche went to Florida where Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell was in prison and interviewed her personally. Openly seeking a pardon, Maxwell said that she had never seen Trump do anything inappropriate.
Mission accomplished.
Shortly thereafter, Maxwell was transferred to a “club fed-type” prison camp—even though her conviction had rendered her ineligible for such placement under Bureau of Prisons policy. Blanche said that threats against her were the reason for the transfer.
As acting attorney general, Blanche has now picked up where Bondi had failed to put Comey behind bars. At an April 28, 2026 press conference, he announced Comey’s indictment alleging that in posting an Instagram photo of sea shells that formed “86 47” on a North Carolina beach, Comey “knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States.”
A sea-shell death threat via Instagram.
“So, I think it's fair to say that threatening the life of anybody is dangerous and potentially a crime,” Blanche said indignantly as he explained that the charges against Comey came with a 10-year potential prison sentence. “Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice.”
Blanche continued, “[W]hile this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute.”
Really? How about these?
“Hang Mike Pence”—Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists, some of whom may have been responsible for the sign carrying that message and the gallows accompanying it. The statute of limitations on such “threats” is five years. Where was that indictment?
“86 46”—Anti-Biden Trump social media personality Jack Posobiec posted this in January 2022. It also appeared on T-Shirts, caps, and Republican fundraising messages.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) posted this in February 2024: “We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell. Better days are ahead for the Republican Party.”
Wasting Taxpayer Money
Prosecutors face a daunting task proving Comey’s subjective intent to harm Trump. Even longtime Trump apologist Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, acknowledged that the indictment “is unlikely to survive constitutional scrutiny. If it did, it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States.”
When asked at his press conference how he would prove intent, Blanche said “with witnesses, with documents, and with the defendant himself,” adding: “It's very premature for me to do that today.”
That non-answer won’t suffice when Comey’s lawyers provide evidence that this is just another vindictive prosecution on Trump’s behalf at taxpayer expense.
Someday Blanche’s progeny may ask him why—as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States—he helped a rogue president run roughshod over the rule of law.
He probably won’t tell them about Roy Cohn.
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Comey Indictment Called 'New Low' for White House 'At War with First Amendment'
"This is embarrassing for America," said one First Amendment advocate.
Apr 29, 2026
As the corporate media joins the White House in a new round of accusations against critics of President Donald Trump in the wake of an attempted attack on the White House Correspondents' Association dinner last week—with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche blaming anti-Trump "rhetoric" for the violence at the event—the administration on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment of longtime Trump foe James Comey in what legal experts called a transparent attack on the First Amendment.
At a press conference held by Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, the officials made the case—without presenting specific evidence—that a federal grand jury in North Carolina had indicted former FBI chief Comey because he'd "knowingly and willfully [made] a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon" Trump in May 2025 in a photo he posted on Instagram.
The picture showed seashells grouped together in a pattern, reading, "86 47."
Trump is the 47th president of the United States, and the slang term "86" means "to get rid of," originating in the 1930s. According to Merriam-Webster, the term began being used as a verb in the 1950s when restaurants and bars used it to mean refusing service to a customer or throwing them out of an establishment. That use of the term is still the most common, according to the dictionary, which wrote: "Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of 'to kill.' We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use."
Comey quickly deleted his post last May, which he said he had shared after finding the seashells in the arrangement during a walk on a beach. The former FBI director said he deleted that post after realizing "some folks associate those numbers with violence," and said he opposes violence "of any kind."
Nevertheless, the indictment handed down on Tuesday reads that the shells were “arranged in a pattern making out ‘86 47,' which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president of the United States.”
Comey was charged with one count of making threats against Trump and one count of transmitting a threat across state lines.
Federal officials issued a warrant for Comey's arrest, but Blanche did not say whether any court dates had been scheduled in the case.
The indictment was dismissed by several legal experts, with prosecutors within the US Department of Justice reportedly calling it "the flimsiest federal indictment in memory," according to ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl. Building a case based solely on an image of seashells will be an uphill battle for the DOJ, particularly considering First Amendment protections on speech.
New York University law professor Ryan Goodman called the indictment "laughably ludicrous" and a "political act masquerading as an indictment," while US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) condemned the president for using the DOJ as his "personal attack dog, using taxpayer money to settle Trump's petty grievances."
This is the second federal indictment that's been handed down by the DOJ for Comey in seven months. Last September he was indicted on two counts of lying to Congress during a testimony he gave in 2020 regarding the FBI's handling of its investigation into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign's ties to Russia.
The DOJ indicted Comey in that case even though a Trump-appointed US attorney had concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him; the president later forced the prosecutor out of his job. A judge ultimately threw out the indictment, ruling that the prosecutor's replacement had been unlawfully appointed to oversee the case.
Both cases have come years after Trump, during his first term, fired Comey as FBI director over the agency's investigation into his 2016 campaign.
Conservative lawyer Gregg Nunziata of the Society for the Rule of Law called the latest indictment of Comey "legally deficient" and a "scandalous marker of a president and his administration corruptly using government power to punish dissent."
American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted that the administration has "repeatedly pursued criminal charges (or other punishments) against political opponents for their speech, at a level not seen since the most censorious days of the early 20th century," including by attempting to charge members of Congress for reminding service members they are obligated to disobey illegal orders.
"In an administration at war with the First Amendment," said Reichlin-Melnick, "this is a new low."
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