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The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into E, G and Carole, the former magazine columnist who accused President Trump of sexual assault. The department is examining whether she committed perjury regarding outside funding for her legal fight. Separate juries awarded Carroll more than $88 million. They found the president liable for sexually abusing her in a New York Department store in the mid 1990s, and defaming her in 2019, when he repeatedly denied the assault.
The president is appealing a pursuing appeals in both cases. With us now CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, she was communications director for the Trump White House. Eugene Carroll won these cases against the president. The jury found him liable for sexual abuse. Now she is being investigated herself. What message does that send? Well, first and foremost, from a PR perspective, because that's my background. I will never understand why this administration wants to put some of the worst associations of the president back in the headlines.
Most of us have kind of forgotten about the Eugene Carroll suit. The allegations, which was he was ultimately found liable for. And now it puts it front and center. It's very similar to the January 6th cases. DOJ wants to keep rehashing them. But then Republicans also say, oh, Democrats keep talking about January 6th. No, this president keeps talking about the election lies January 6th. So from purely a standpoint of winning to focus on his domestic agenda and move forward, this makes zero sense. So interesting because asking my follow up question here, which is
what do they get out of putting this out there months before a midterm? Absolutely nothing. It's not a headline that they want. And we've seen a number of these cases go forward. James Comey and others where they overreach. DOJ was not able to get the outcome that they wanted. And I suspect this will be a similar case. I mean, I'm not from a legal perspective, but based on what we know, this should be the last thing Donald Trump wants to talk about in the twilight of his presidency.
He should be focusing on the economy, gas prices, the war in Iran, not relitigating this. You know, people either who worked for the white House or who were connected with them, who then split it. And I'm just wondering how much fear there is out there among people who do have a rift with the administration about being investigated? I don't know if I'd frame is fear, but sort of an acceptance that folks are going to be investigated. I think if Chris Krebs of Myles Taylor, other critics of the president who are already going through those, those legal proceedings now, and I think folks knew to lawyer up and be ready because this is a president who was very clear
that he was going to be doing a bit of a revenge tour. I would just hope that advisers around the president I know this is something Siouxsie Wiles pushed. This is not what you want on you may have talked about it on the campaign trail, but it's not why people entrusted you with the American presidency. Focus on actually delivering for the American people. Joining us right now is CNN senior legal analyst, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.
Thanks for coming in, Ali. I really appreciate it. So as John was just saying, this is now an investigation into Carroll. Questions about perjury. And it gets to the 2022 deposition that Carroll gave. What does the Justice Department need to show or prove and how serious of a case is? So perjury cases are serious. They're punishable by maximum five years in prison, but they're much harder for prosecutors to prove than I think people might realize. So what prosecutors will have to show here to have an indictment against Carol is that a she gave false testimony
about whether she knew where this funding was coming from, be that the way she was asked the question was unambiguous. There's no wiggle room. There's no confusion about what the question was or what the answer was. See that she knew it was false at that time, in 2022, at the deposition. And then the prosecutors will have to show what we call materiality. Meaning was the thing she allegedly lied about, relevant to some substantial issue in the case. It's not enough if it was just some detail or some throw away. So those are the things prosecutors have to show. And of course, Kate, beyond a reasonable doubt
when it gets to a jury, if and when it gets to the materiality, I think, I think it's one of the questions that people will have is this isn't, it's not. And I don't want to say quibble like it's not serious, but it's not a question about, her telling the truth regarding a key element of what she has accused the president of. No, this is about just funding for her legal fees. Why does that matter? Right? It has nothing to do with the alleged sexual assault inside the department store. But I think the argument prosecutors will make on materiality is the defense argument.
Donald Trump's defense at that civil case was, in part, that Carol had fabricated the story about what happened in the department store to take him down politically. And the argument would be if she was indeed being funded by Democratic Megadonor that would be relevant to her motive. So that'll be the argument. I actually do think if they can prove she knowingly lied, I do think they will be able to satisfy materiality. The bar, by the way, for materiality is very low. You just have to show that it was relevant to some fact in the case. But and another aspect of this is just if you add into, the in, in the context of this pattern of retribution that we have seen
from the Justice Department, from President Trump, especially of recent, how does that add into this? So this is very relevant legally. And this could overcome the entire case. If there comes a day where Carol gets charged, she will have a very strong, vindictive prosecution defense. The textbook definition of vindictive prosecution is somebody asserts their rights, let's say, by a lawsuit, and wins and then gets punished with a prosecution in return. And so she will have a very strong case. And this, of course, is not happening in a vacuum. Kate, we've seen politically targeted prosecutions that have failed against Letitia James, against Jim Comey, against Mark Kelly, against Alyssa Slotkin, an investigation of Jerome Powell on down the line.
So she'll have a powerful defense to be made. But she can't do it now. She can only do it if and when there comes a day where she gets indicted. Joining me now is someone who was targeted, who has been targeted by the administration, and he knows firsthand what that's like. National security attorney Mark Zaid represents several Trump critics who has been singled out by this administration. Mark, I want to begin, first of all, look, set the stage here.
How is it possible that a civil lawsuit does not involve federal prosecutors would now be investigated for perjury, as if you lied to the government? This is very rare. I haven't heard of this before. It is incredibly rare. But everyone who sits in a deposition, civil depositions I've taken God knows how many. Dozens of hundreds of them. There is an oath that is administered at the beginning, and it is the same type of oath that if you testified in court, whether a civil case or a criminal case, but it is incredibly rare that someone would be prosecuted
by the federal government for lying in a deposition. There are examples. Hey, we talking about some sex related cases here? Bill Clinton back in the 1990s with Monica Lewinsky, the independent counsel investigated him, I'm sorry, with Paula Jones, investigated him as to whether or not he had lied under oath. And now that was the independent counsel, federal government against the federal government. But it was from a civil deposition. And at that time, people were asking the same type of questions. When is the last time this ever happened?
I've been practicing 35 years, almost. I've never seen this happen, but they came up with as a handful cases here, a handful there. Usually when someone's paid to lie or there's a systemic threat to the justice system. Not like this type of case that just reeks of retribution given who the players are. Let's talk about the idea of a payment that has come up in this particular matter. I mean, it was Reid Hoffman who we mentioned is somebody who helped to pay legal expenses. And here's what he said when he addressed this issue in the past.
Is a standard practice that happens a lot where there's an outside funding of lawsuits. They, we didn't encourage the lawsuit to happen. We only got on board after she had already filed it and was down the road. Now, why that's important is based on what you just said, the idea of somebody being paid to lie. It appears that might be the connection they're trying to look at here. It's unclear, but does the fact that he funded the suit after it was already in the universe going to impact how they see this case?
No, I don't think so. And paid to lie would be literally someone was paid to lie in the case, as for example, an expert witness in this case, what she knows when she no knew it is going to be key. Did she know that there was funding coming in? At what level did she know all the details? As a lawyer, we do crowd funding at times to raise cases, especially when I want to represent people pro bono against the U.S government. I don't want them to pay a dime for having been fired by this administration. So we do some crowdsourcing. I don't necessarily give all the details to the clients that they would know, and that's important because if it's a perjury investigation,
you have to prove that she knew what her statement at the time she made it was false. And usually the remedy would be you take it to the court and you tell the judge, and maybe that testimony would be thrown out or there'd be some other type of penalty. Bill Clinton got fined, and he had to give up his law license for a period of time or whenever it was.
