Reid Hoffman spent millions helping finance E. Jean Carroll’s legal battle against President Donald Trump, and the political class barely blinked. A billionaire placing enormous wealth behind a case against a president was treated less like oligarchic influence and more like civic virtue.
Now Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, faces a New York bar complaint alleging she failed to promptly correct Carroll’s sworn testimony about outside funding. The National Legal and Policy Center says Kaplan knew Carroll’s October 2022 answer was false when Carroll denied anyone else was paying her legal fees. From the Daily Signal:
Tax filings from 2023 for Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, show it paid $7 million to Carroll’s lawyers to help cover legal expenses, according to the Capital Research Center, which monitors nonprofits.
Carroll wrote the 2019 book, “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal,” in which she said Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store during the 1990s. Trump denied the allegation and called her a “whack job.”
She sued him in 2019 for defamation and was awarded $83.3 million by a jury. She sued again in 2022 for remarks Trump made, and she won a separate $5 million judgment. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal in the $5 million case, but his appeal in the $83.3 million judgment is pending. On Wednesday, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s effort to pause the $5 million payment to Carroll.
The NLPC’s complaint says Kaplan failed to inform Trump’s lawyers and the court when she knew that her client, Carroll, provided false information during a deposition.
In October 2022, Carroll was asked under oath if “anyone else [is] paying your legal fees.”
Carroll answered, “No.”
The bar complaint says, “At that moment, Kaplan knew that answer was false but waited almost six months later, until the eve of the trial, to correct the record by informing opposing counsel and the court that Hoffman had funded the lawsuits.”
The complaint alleges Kaplan waited nearly six months, until shortly before trial, to disclose Hoffman’s role.
The complaint is an allegation, not a finding of misconduct. Kaplan’s firm points to an appellate ruling that rejected Trump’s effort to use the funding issue against Carroll. The court found no evidence that Carroll arranged the funding, dealt with Hoffman, received billing records, or discussed the arrangement during the long period before her bar deposition.
Still, the court’s conclusion about Carroll’s credibility doesn’t settle every ethical question involving her lawyer. The complaint asks whether Kaplan had a separate duty to correct the record sooner and whether her fee arrangement created an excessive payment when third-party money was added to a contingency agreement.
Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, paid $7 million to the law firm representing Carroll. Hoffman is the LinkedIn co-founder and a major Democratic donor. He’s said his team supported Carroll because she was challenging someone richer and more powerful.
The Justice Department is also examining American Future Republic’s role in funding Carroll’s litigation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois has made clear Carroll isn’t the target of a criminal investigation. From CBS News:
On Wednesday evening, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News that the investigation was focused on whether Carroll had committed perjury during a deposition in connection with her civil lawsuits against Mr. Trump in which she alleged he had sexually abused and defamed her.
On Thursday, however, that source followed up and said Carroll is not the target of the investigation, which is focused on funding that Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, provided to help cover some of her legal team’s expenses.
On Thursday evening, after this report published, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Andrew Boutros, said in a statement on X: “In light of wide-spread reporting and intense media and public interest into the E. Jean Carroll matter in New York, the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office can confirm that it has not opened—and has never opened—a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll. Any claim to the contrary is categorically false.”
Two separate sources also confirmed that the probe is focused on the American Future Republic. One of the sources added that while the perjury allegations against Carroll were part of the original referral that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago received earlier this year, prosecutors there are not pursuing that line of inquiry at this time.
The reported inquiry focuses on the nonprofit and possible money laundering, conspiracy, and obstruction.
The larger issue is the political vocabulary used around wealth.
Elon Musk spends money supporting Trump, and the left calls him an oligarch threatening democracy. Conservative billionaires support legal groups, candidates, or ballot campaigns, and the money becomes proof of corruption before anyone examines the underlying case.
Hoffman spends millions helping finance litigation against Trump, and his wealth becomes compassion with a checkbook.
Billionaire influence doesn’t become pure because the recipient is popular with Democrats. Money can expand access to justice, but it can also shape which cases receive elite lawyers, endless resources, and national attention.
Both possibilities can exist at one time.
Americans should apply one standard; wealthy donors may legally support causes, candidates, litigation, and advocacy. Their motives, arrangements, and influence should still face scrutiny regardless of party.
The complaint against Kaplan may fail, the investigation may produce no charges, and Hoffman’s support may have followed every applicable rule. Those outcomes wouldn’t erase the double standard exposed by the reaction.
America apparently has good oligarchs and bad oligarchs. The label depends less on how much power they buy than on whose political enemies they help defeat.
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