2026年5月27日 / 美国东部时间晚上11:18 / 哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS)新闻
据了解此事的消息人士透露,美国司法部正在开展刑事调查,以查明作家E·让·卡罗尔是否在其针对特朗普总统的民事诉讼中作伪证。
其中一位消息人士补充说,此次调查由伊利诺伊州北区联邦检察官办公室牵头。
卡罗尔就性侵和诽谤两项指控对特朗普提起两起民事诉讼。2023年,陪审团认定特朗普在2022年发表的相关言论构成性侵和诽谤,卡罗尔获得500万美元损害赔偿。
2024年,另一陪审团认定特朗普在2019年针对卡罗尔的言论构成诽谤,判罚她获得8330万美元损害赔偿。两项判决均在上诉程序中得以维持。
一位消息人士表示,曾代理特朗普部分诉讼案件的代理司法部长托德·布兰奇回避了此案。
美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)较早前报道了此次调查。一位消息人士告诉CBS新闻,此次调查的核心在于卡罗尔是否在2022年的证词中谎称自己未为诉讼获得任何外部资助。
后续披露信息显示,领英联合创始人、亿万富翁里德·霍夫曼曾为她支付部分法律费用。
CBS新闻已就此次调查向伊利诺伊州北区联邦检察官办公室征求评论,同时也联系了代理卡罗尔处理两起诉讼的律师罗伯塔·卡普兰。
卡罗尔指控特朗普在20世纪90年代中期的一次偶遇中,在纽约市一家百货公司的试衣间内对其实施性侵,她于2019年在《纽约杂志》发表相关报道。2019年,卡罗尔以诽谤罪起诉特朗普,但案件在法庭陷入停滞。
随后她在2022年提起第二起诽谤诉讼,并根据纽约州《成年幸存者法案》新增了强奸指控。
特朗普一直否认相关性侵指控。
据《纽约时报》报道,特朗普的律师团队于2023年4月,也就是第一起诽谤诉讼庭审前夕提交的法律文件中,首次披露了霍夫曼为卡罗尔的诉讼提供资金支持一事。
当特朗普的律师团队在上诉程序中提及这一问题时,上诉法院认定卡罗尔在证词中“看似合理地表示”她“已经忘记了其律师所获得的有限外部资助”。
美国第二巡回上诉法院在2024年的判决书中写道:“恰恰相反,证据表明卡罗尔女士根本没有参与谁为其诉讼费用提供资助的相关事宜。”
在2023年5月接受《华盛顿邮报》采访时,霍夫曼解释了他为何选择资助卡罗尔的法律行动,他表示:“我们并没有鼓动这场诉讼,我们只是在她已经提起诉讼后才加入进来的。”
“我的团队对此进行了评估,认为她的声音应该被听到,因为她正在挑战一位远比她富有和有权势的人,这种不公不应该被压制。”霍夫曼说道。
Justice Department investigating whether Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll committed perjury, sources say
May 27, 2026 / 11:18 PM EDT / CBS News
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into whether author E. Jean Carroll committed perjury in connection with her civil lawsuits against President Trump, sources familiar with the matter said.
The investigation is being led out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, one of the sources added.
Carroll sued Mr. Trump in two civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault and defamation. In 2023, a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation for comments he made in 2022. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages.
A second jury in 2024 found him liable for defamation in connection with comments he had made about Carroll in 2019, awarding her $83.3 million in damages. Both judgments were upheld on appeal.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented Mr. Trump on some of the litigation, is recused from the case, one source added.
The investigation was reported earlier by CNN. The theory of the case hinges on whether Carroll lied when she said in a 2022 deposition that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, a source told CBS News.
It was later revealed that billionaire Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, helped pay for some of her legal expenses.
CBS News has reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois for comment on the investigation, as well as to Roberta Kaplan, the attorney who represented Carroll for the two lawsuits.
Carroll accused Mr. Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store dressing room during an encounter in the mid-1990s, an account which she published in a 2019 story for New York Magazine. In 2019, Carroll sued Mr. Trump for defamation, but the case stalled in court.
She then filed a second defamation lawsuit in 2022, adding a claim of rape under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied the sexual assault allegations.
Hoffman’s financial backing for Carroll’s lawsuit was first revealed in legal papers filed by Mr. Trump’s attorneys in April 2023, just ahead of the trial in the first defamation lawsuit, according to the New York Times.
When Mr. Trump’s attorneys brought the issue up on appeal, the appeals court found that Carroll had “plausibly represented” in her deposition “that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained.”
“Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District wrote in its 2024 ruling.
In a May 2023 interview with the Washington Post, Hoffman explained why he chose to help fund Carroll’s legal action, saying that “we didn’t encourage the lawsuit to happen, we only got on board after she’d already filed.”
“My team looked at it, thought that her voice should be heard because she was challenging someone who was so much more wealthy and powerful, it shouldn’t be squashed,” Hoffman said.
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