Denial of Criminal Investigation into E. Jean Carroll by the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
美國伊利諾州北區檢察官否認對 E. Jean Carroll 進行刑事調查
Introduction
U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros has formally denied that his office initiated a criminal probe into E. Jean Carroll following media reports of potential perjury investigations.
在媒體報導指可能有偽證調查後，美國檢察官 Andrew Boutros 正式否認其辦公室啟動了對 E. Jean Carroll 的刑事調查。
Main Body
The controversy originated from reports by multiple news organizations, including CNN and the Associated Press, suggesting that the Department of Justice was examining whether Ms. Carroll provided false testimony during civil litigation against President Donald Trump. Specifically, the scrutiny concerned a 2022 deposition in which Ms. Carroll stated she received no outside funding for her legal fees, a claim later contradicted by the disclosure of financial support from American Future Republic, a non-profit entity associated with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. While initial anonymous sources indicated that Ms. Carroll was the primary target, subsequent clarifications suggested the investigative focus was directed toward the non-profit organization itself.
此爭議源於包括 CNN 和美聯社在內的多家新聞機構報導，指出司法部正在調查 Carroll 女士在針對總統川普的民事訴訟中是否提供了虛假證詞。具體而言，調查焦點在於 2022 年的一份供詞，Carroll 女士在其中聲稱其法律費用未收到外部資助，但隨後披露她收到了由 LinkedIn 共同創辦人 Reid Hoffman 關聯的非營利機構 American Future Republic 提供的資金支持，與先前說法相矛盾。雖然最初的匿名消息指出 Carroll 女士是主要目標，但隨後的澄清顯示調查焦點是指向該非營利機構本身。
Historically, the legal disputes between the parties resulted in two significant civil judgments. In 2023, a jury found President Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, awarding $5 million. A subsequent 2024 judgment awarded Ms. Carroll $83.3 million for defamation. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the initial award on December 30, 2024, determining that Ms. Carroll's failure to disclose the funding in 2022 was likely due to an oversight regarding limited contributions received in 2020. President Trump has consistently characterized these allegations as fraudulent and politically motivated.
在法律爭議方面，雙方此前有兩次重要的民事判決。2023 年，陪審團判定川普總統對性侵犯和誹謗負責，裁決賠償 500 萬美元。隨後 2024 年的判決裁定 Carroll 女士獲得 8,330 萬美元的誹謗賠償。美國第二巡迴上訴法院於 2024 年 12 月 30 日維持原判，認定 Carroll 女士在 2022 年未能披露資金可能是因為忽略了 2020 年收到的有限捐款。川普總統一直將這些指控定性為詐欺且具有政治動機。
Stakeholder positioning reflects a broader institutional tension. Mr. Hoffman has characterized the reported scrutiny as a retaliatory measure by the administration to penalize critics. Concurrently, Democratic officials and former government personnel have posited that the Department of Justice is being utilized as a mechanism for political retribution, citing the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. Furthermore, U.S. Attorney Boutros faces internal pressure, with Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton calling for his resignation following separate prosecutorial errors involving the 'Broadview Six' and alleged misconduct in grand jury proceedings.
利益相關者的立場反映了更廣泛的體制緊張局勢。Hoffman 先生將報導中的調查描述為政府用以懲罰批評者的報復措施。同時，民主黨官員和前政府人員認為司法部正被用作政治報復的工具，並引用前 FBI 局長 James Comey 最近被起訴作為例證。此外，檢察官 Boutros 面臨內部壓力，副州長 Juliana Stratton 在「Broadview Six」案件出現檢控失誤以及大陪審團程序涉嫌不當行為後，要求其辭職。
Conclusion
The U.S. Attorney's office maintains that no criminal investigation into Ms. Carroll exists, while the financial awards remain subject to potential Supreme Court review.
美國檢察官辦公室堅持對 Carroll 女士不存在刑事調查，而相關賠償金額仍可能面臨最高法院的審查。
Vocabulary Learning
The Architecture of Institutional Detachment
To move from B2 to C2, a student must stop describing actions and start describing phenomena. The provided text is a masterclass in Nominalization and Agentless Passive Construction, used here to maintain an aura of judicial impartiality and institutional distance.
◈ The 'Erosion of the Actor'
Observe how the text avoids attributing direct action to individuals, instead treating legal processes as self-evolving entities.
- B2 Approach: "The Department of Justice looked into whether Ms. Carroll lied."
- C2 Execution: "...the scrutiny concerned a 2022 deposition..."
In the C2 version, "scrutiny" (a noun) becomes the subject. The human actor (the prosecutor) vanishes. This is not merely a grammatical choice; it is a sociolinguistic strategy to evoke objectivity. The investigation isn't something a person does; it is a state of being under scrutiny.
◈ Lexical Precision: The 'Hedge' and the 'Anchor'
C2 mastery requires the ability to calibrate the strength of a claim. Note the juxtaposition of these terms:
- The Anchor (Certainty): "formally denied," "upheld the initial award," "resulted in two significant civil judgments." These are immutable facts. They provide the structural bedrock of the report.
- The Hedge (Nuance): "suggesting that," "likely due to," "posited that." These verbs allow the writer to report allegations without endorsing them as truth.
Pro Tip: To achieve C2 fluency, replace common verbs like say or think with Epistemic Verbs such as posit, characterize, or maintain. These verbs do not just convey information; they categorize the nature of the claim being made.
◈ Syntactic Density: The 'Compressed Clause'
Look at the phrase: "...a claim later contradicted by the disclosure of financial support..."
Rather than writing a new sentence ("This claim was later contradicted..."), the writer uses a reduced relative clause. This compresses a complex chronological sequence (Claim Time Passes Disclosure Contradiction) into a single, elegant noun phrase. This density is the hallmark of academic and high-level legal English.