Thread by @lawofruby

The new DOJ investigation of E. Jean Carroll, according to CNN, stems from her testifying at her 2022 deposition that her lawyers were handling her case on contingency and that no one else was funding her case. But correspondence filed in the first-tried Carroll case reflects that it was always more complicated. 1/

In April 2023, as they were preparing for trial, Carroll’s counsel informed Trump’s team that E. Jean recalled that she had learned that a non-profit was helping defray the costs associated with her suit, costs that her lawyers assumed when they took the case on contingency. 2/

By the next day, having spoken with Trump’s counsel, Carroll’s lawyers wrote again to clarify the Trump side’s “misunderstanding of the facts.” 3/

Specifically, months after the case was first filed, Carroll’s lawyers “secured financial support from a nonprofit
organization that would help offset certain costs and fees” associated with counsel’s work on the case. 4/

Further, Carroll had never met or communicated “with anyone associated with that nonprofit or its financial support.” 5/

I explained these facts to a lawyer tonight, who said, “In a situation like that, the only thing a plaintiff would care about is whether or not she herself was paying the fees.” And she wasn’t. 6/

In other words, it struck them as totally plausible that nearly two years after her lawyers got funding from people she never met or spoke to, Carroll forgot about the non-profit. 7/

Yet the federal statutes criminalizing perjury require that the allegedly false statements be made knowingly and/or willfully. 8/

It’s worth asking the question federal prosecutors in Chicago now must answer: Do the facts outlined above suggest inadvertence and good faith, or an intentional falsehood in order to disguise malice toward Trump? FIN.