Judge Seals Filings Over Funding Billionaire Carroll Vs Trump Lawsuit

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E. Jean Carroll’s rape case against former President Donald Trump will go to trial next week. A federal judge has sealed documents related to whether billionaire Reid Hoffman funded Carroll’s suit. Trump’s legal team plans to oppose the move. Loading Something is loading.

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A federal judge has agreed to seal material related to whether billionaire and prominent Democratic party donor Reid Hoffman is bankrolling a rape case against former President Donald Trump.

In an unexplained order Friday, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan agreed to a request from an attorney for plaintiff E. Jean Carroll to keep a batch of documents sealed, as well as all future filing and hearing on the issue.

“The interest in public access here is minimal, especially since the parties’ previous on-the-record filings have already provided significant public access to information about otherwise irrelevant and tangential subject,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote, adding that some files may be protected by attorney-client privilege.

Alina Habba, a lawyer representing Trump in the lawsuit, told Insider that she will oppose the decision.

In 2019, Carroll, a writer and longtime Elle advice columnist, publicly accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store changing room in the 1990s. Trump denied the allegations and called Carroll a liar, which led to Carroll filing a defamation lawsuit against him, which remains pending, and a later battery lawsuit, which is set to go to trial next that week in Manhattan federal court.

Attorneys for Trump have repeatedly sought to delay the case, but to no avail.

On April 13, Habba asked Judge Kaplan (who is not related to Carroll’s attorney) to postpone the trial and reopen the discovery process in the case. Carroll’s legal team, Habba said, disclosed that a nonprofit funded by Hoffman, a founder and former executive chairman of LinkedIn, had contributed money to Kaplan’s law firm. The funding, Habba said, is “particularly relevant to the instant matter given the political overtones of this case” and Trump’s current campaign in the 2024 presidential race.

In a dueling court filing, Roberta Kaplan said her firm was paid on a contingency basis for the lawsuit. The funding from Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, was used only to pay “certain expenses and fees related to the firm’s work on Carroll’s behalf.” Carroll has not personally dealt with the nonprofit organization or its financial backers, Kaplan said.

“The sources obtained by Ms. Carroll’s counsel clearly have nothing to do with what happened at Bergdorf Goodman and whether Donald Trump lied about Ms. Carroll beginning in June 2019 when this dispute began,” Kaplan wrote.

However, the judge allowed Trump’s lawyers to ask Carroll more questions during the deposition about whether he knew about the financing, a question he said could be relevant to jurors examining his credibility. but refused to push the trial.

Judge Kaplan’s deadline for further discovery passed earlier this week. Carroll’s attorney on Friday filed several documents related to the issue, along with his now-approved request to seal them.

The trial, which is expected to last about a week, is scheduled to begin jury selection on Tuesday.

Trump’s lawyers have not said whether the former president will attend the trial, and Judge Kaplan is not pressing him to. However, the judge rejected a request from Trump’s lawyers to tell jurors that he was allowed to appear because of logistical and security arrangements related to his appearance in downtown Manhattan.

“The Court noted from Mr. Trump’s campaign web site and media reports that he announced earlier this week that he would speak at a campaign event in New Hampshire on April 27, 2023, the third day of the scheduled trial in this case,” the judge wrote in a Thursday order. “If the Secret Service can protect him in that event, then the Secret Service, the Marshals Service, and the City of New York can certainly ensure his security in this highly secure federal courthouse.”

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