LinkedIn Founder Is Secretly Funding E. Jean Carroll’s Lawsuit Against Trump

[Auburnfan91 1,408]

LinkedIn Founder Is Secretly Funding E. Jean Carroll’s Lawsuit Against Trump

Trump's legal team has questioned for years who's funding E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit. Now they finally know.

Jose Pagliery

Political Investigations Reporter

Updated Apr. 13, 2023 2:29PM ET / Published Apr. 13, 2023 1:44PM ET

 

 

Reid Hoffman, the billionaire behind LinkedIn who’s now a megadonor to Democrats, has been quietly bankrolling E. Jean Carroll’s rape case against former President Donald Trump, according to court records filed Thursday.

The surprising last-minute disclosures came out in contentious correspondence between lawyers for the aggrieved journalist and the pissed off former president, who are battling over whether to delay the trial scheduled to start in two weeks.

While it’s unclear if that payment arrangement has any material impact on the case itself, the fact that it remained secret until now will surely support Trump’s unrelenting, conspiratorial complaints that ultra rich liberals have been pulling the strings on the efforts to take him down.

Hoffman is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who founded the professional social network LinkedIn. In recent years, Vox also identified him as a major Democratic donor who has made it his mission to loosen Trump’s control over the Republican Party. According to Insider, Hoffman’s distaste for Trump’s authoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies has even strained his personal relationship with another Silicon Valley staple, Peter Thiel, who has conversely fashioned himself as a bankroller of right-wing causes.

Carroll, a longtime magazine columnist, claims Trump raped her in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in the 1990s. She wrote a tell-all memoir, Trump called her a liar from the White House, she sued him for defamation, and the case has been tied up in legal limbo for nearly four years. Now that New York passed a rape survivors law extending the statute of limitations on private civil lawsuits, Carroll sued again—this time seeking a trial that would potentially award her money, but more importantly brand the powerful real estate tycoon seeking a second presidential term as a rapist.

Trump lawyers Alina Habba and Joe Tacopina—who have already tried to delay the trial—are seizing on the strange nature of this 11th hour revelation to ask a federal judge to push back the trial or even open up another round of investigation before it starts.

In a letter on Thursday morning, Trump’s legal team documented how Carroll at her Oct. 14 deposition claimed that no one else was paying for her lawyers—only to have those same lawyers suddenly inform them this Monday that they indeed had a mystery backer. Trump’s lawyers say Carroll’s team wouldn’t immediately disclose who this rich donor was until several phone calls later during the week, when they reluctantly revealed that it was Hoffman and a nonprofit called American Future Republic.

“The proposition that [Carroll] has suddenly ‘recollected’ the source of her funding for this high-profile litigation—which has spanned four years, spawned two separate actions, and been before numerous state, federal, and appellate courts—is not only preposterous, it is demonstrably false. Indeed, it simply defies logic to believe that [Carroll’s] attorneys—four

of whom were present at her deposition—were unaware that their own firm had ‘secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization’ to bankroll their client’s various lawsuits and ensure their bills were being paid,” they wrote on Thursday.

Habba and Tacopina wrote to the federal judge overseeing the case that Carroll “apparently perjured herself during her deposition; her counsel sat by and allowed her to do so, knowing full well that her testimony was false; and then they conspired to conceal the truth for nearly six months, only to disclose it on the eve of trial.”

Meanwhile, Carroll’s attorney immediately filed a letter of her own that downplays the significance of the news. Roberta Kaplan explained that Carroll did indeed initiate the lawsuit on her own, but that the legal team found someone to fund the lawsuit much later.

“That Carroll’s counsel was able to obtain financial support almost a year after Carroll commenced litigation against Trump has absolutely no bearing on whether Trump sexually assaulted her in Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s,” Kaplan wrote. “Funding obtained by counsel is not a proper topic for discovery, let alone a relevant issue at trial.”

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s lawyer, has not yet responded. However, at a recent court hearing he sternly maintained that he plans to proceed with the trial on April 25.

In her own letter, Carroll’s attorney conceded that Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly sought information about who was paying for the lawsuit. But Kaplan explained that she objected and “then Trump did nothing.”

“He did not press or pursue the issue,” Carroll’s lawyer said. She also called the payment arrangement “plainly irrelevant.”

Trump’s legal team is using this as an opportunity to bolster the notion that left-leaning elites keep engaging in underhanded political tactics, noting how Hoffman in 2018 apologized for funding a group that engaged in Russian-bot-like disinformation against the Republican frontrunner in an Alabama senate race.

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/linkedin-founder-is-secretly-funding-e-jean-carrolls-lawsuit-against-trump

[AURex 2,262]

Taking on a billionaire like Trump in court requires a LOT of money. Does it matter where the money for her suit comes from?

He is either guilty of the crime or he isn't.

 

[I_M4_AU 8,978]

9 hours ago, AURex said:

Taking on a billionaire like Trump in court requires a LOT of money. Does it matter where the money for her suit comes from?

He is either guilty of the crime or he isn't.

 

Why haven’t the authorities pursued this *crime*?  

[CoffeeTiger 5,914]

1 hour ago, I_M4_AU said:

Why haven’t the authorities pursued this *crime*?  

Maybe for the same reasons that men like Jeffrey Epstein escaped legal scrutiny and punishment for so long. 

When you're a wealthy aristocrat the legal system just works "differently" for you. 

[I_M4_AU 8,978]

Just now, CoffeeTiger said:

Maybe for the same reasons that men like Jeffrey Epstein escaped legal scrutiny and punishment for so long. 

When you're a wealthy aristocrat the legal system just works "differently" for you. 

You maybe on to something here.  Epstein was a life long Democrat  and Trump was up until 2016.  I see your point.  Thanks.

[CoffeeTiger 5,914]

3 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

You maybe on to something here.  Epstein was a life long Democrat  and Trump was up until 2016.  I see your point.  Thanks.

Trump was actually politically independent for most of his voting life. He changed from Dem, Ind, and Republican multiple times depending on which party he believed benefitted him more at the time 

2016 was the first and only time an entire political party actually took him seriously and made him their figurehead. 

[I_M4_AU 8,978]

18 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

Trump was actually politically independent for most of his voting life. He changed from Dem, Ind, and Republican multiple times depending on which party he believed benefitted him more at the time 

2016 was the first and only time an entire political party actually took him seriously and made him their figurehead. 

True, but in 2016, when the both political parties took him seriously only one devised scandals to depose him from office and weaponize the legal system to destroy the man.  Much to my dislike, he is the leading opposition candidate for the 2024 Presidential race.  It doesn’t mean he is immune from prosecution, but at least it should be a prosecution that is air tight.

The *justice system* have cases lined up until way after Election Day in 2024. The most serious (I would guess) is the secret document case the DOJ is investigating and that one is being eroded by Biden on a daily basis.  Beat him by having better policies.  Is it that hard?

[Leftfield 3,388]

3 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

Why haven’t the authorities pursued this *crime*?  

IM_4_AU: "Well, if the authorities aren't pursuing it, there must not be a crime."

Also IM_4_AU: *Starts another thread claiming the inanity of convicting a man who supposedly acted in self-defence (and supporting his pardon), despite a full investigation and jury trial having taken place, where the jury voted unanimously to convict...IN TEXAS.*

[I_M4_AU 8,978]

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

IM_4_AU: "Well, if the authorities aren't pursuing it, there must not be a crime."

Also IM_4_AU: *Starts another thread claiming the inanity of convicting a man who supposedly acted in self-defence (and supporting his pardon), despite a full investigation and jury trial having taken place, where the jury voted unanimously to convict...IN TEXAS.*

It’s kind of a misquote on you first accusation as I asked a question.  

Yes, is the justice system fool proof?  The pardon is being sought from the Governor under the *Stand Your Ground* law.  Is this not reasonable for the Governor to do this?   Is there not a basis for the pardon?

If there was a chance to get a conviction if Trump committed a crime shouldn’t the authorities pursue a conviction?

 

 

[Leftfield 3,388]

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

Yes, is the justice system fool proof?  The pardon is being sought from the Governor under the *Stand Your Ground* law.  Is this not reasonable for the Governor to do this?   Is there not a basis for the pardon?

Someone already made a point about the Stand Your Ground law, and that is that any defense attorney with a pulse would have cited it. The jury clearly dismissed it, so no, it is not reasonable for the governor to do that. He showed his hand when he said he would attempt to overturn a conviction even before it was handed down - this is all politics on his part. That completely disregards our system of justice and further erodes public trust, as evidenced by your stance on this.

Once again, this was a trial IN TEXAS. I might be able to understand some skepticism had this been in San Francisco or something, but it's asinine for you to dismiss a jury in Texas. Even in the Austin area you're not going to get anywhere close to 12 jurors that are hardcore left on the same panel.

[I_M4_AU 8,978]

18 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

Someone already made a point about the Stand Your Ground law, and that is that any defense attorney with a pulse would have cited it. The jury clearly dismissed it, so no, it is not reasonable for the governor to do that. He showed his hand when he said he would attempt to overturn a conviction even before it was handed down - this is all politics on his part. That completely disregards our system of justice and further erodes public trust, as evidenced by your stance on this.

Once again, this was a trial IN TEXAS. I might be able to understand some skepticism had this been in San Francisco or something, but it's asinine for you to dismiss a jury in Texas. Even in the Austin area you're not going to get anywhere close to 12 jurors that are hardcore left on the same panel.

We will see what Governor Abbott’s pardon and parole committee recommends.