Former President Donald Trump is questioning the “bias and motive” behind a defamation suit against him by a New York writer after learning the lawsuit is funded by a Democrat megadonor, Reid Hoffman, court filings on April 13 indicate.
The development is the latest in the legal saga between Trump and writer E. Jean Carroll that, according to Trump’s lawyers, taints Carroll’s case with political undertones.
It dates to 2019 when Carroll accused the former president of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s. After Trump denied her allegations in 2019, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump in the same year, which bounced around state, federal, and appellate courts in New York and Washington, D.C., and is ongoing.
Carroll filed a separate defamation lawsuit in the Southern District of New York in November 2022, which was the case related to Thursday’s development.
Nonprofit Funding Revealed
In an April 13 letter, Trump’s lawyers Alina Habba and Joseph Tacopina raised concerns about Carroll’s statement in an Oct. 14, 2022, deposition that no one was paying her legal fees.
But according to an April 10 letter from Carroll’s attorney to Trump’s attorneys, Carroll “now recalls that at some point her counsel secured additional funding from a nonprofit organization to offset certain expenses and legal fees.”
That funding, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said in an April 13 response to Trump’s letter, was obtained from “a nonprofit to help pay certain costs and fees in connection with the firm’s work on Carroll’s behalf.”
Trump’s lawyers say they were told by Carroll’s lawyers that the nonprofit providing this funding is the Democrat-aligned organization American Future Republic. Trump’s lawyers also said the “primary backer” of this nonprofit is Hoffman, the billionaire founder of LinkedIn. Carroll’s attorneys did not dispute this claim and cited Hoffman’s name in their response letter on April 13.
Influence Watch, the Capital Research Center’s policy influence watchdog website, states that Hoffman is the “primary funder” of American Future Republic and characterizes the 501(c)(4) nonprofit as “left-of-center.” The website says the nonprofit had a revenue of over $21.9 million in 2019.
By Gary Bai
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