EXCLUSIVE: Bar Complaint Rejected After Claims E. Jean Carroll Lawyer Concealed $7 Million Funding Source for Trump Lawsuit

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The lawyer for E. Jean Carroll will not face any sanction for not immediately disclosing that a major Democrat donor funded Carroll’s sexual assault lawsuit against President Donald Trump.

The New York State Attorney Grievance Committee of the New York State Supreme Court sent a letter Monday to the watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center dismissing the complaint against Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer in the case, according to a committee letter shared with the Daily Signal. Carroll won a recent $5.8 million payout from President Donald Trump in a sexual assault lawsuit.

In July, NLPC filed a bar complaint with the Attorney Grievance Committee against Kaplan, alleging she was not transparent about left-leaning billionaire Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, helping fund Carroll’s lawsuit. 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.

In October 2022, Carroll was asked under oath if “anyone else [is] paying your legal fees.” Carroll answered, “No.”

The NLPC’s 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 National Legal and Policy Center plans to appeal the decision within the next two weeks, the group’s counsel Paul Kamenar told the Daily Signal.

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The Aug. 3 letter to Kamenar from Jorge Dopico, the grievance committee’s chief attorney, dismissed Kamenar’s concern.

“Specifically, you complained that Roberta Kaplan, attorney for E. Jean Carroll, failed to timely correct allegedly false testimony concerning ‘outside funding of her client’s defamation lawsuits[.]’ You indicated that this matter was brought before and addressed by the court handling this lawsuit,” the letter says. “We have found that a judicial determination of such matters is helpful as this Committee is not the proper forum for re-litigating issues that were previously, or should have been, decided by the court of first review.”

Kamenar called the two-sentence dismissal of a 15-page ethics complaint a cursory rejection that demonstrated liberal bias.

“The court only reviewed E. Jean Carroll’s relationship with Reid Hoffman, the funder of her defamation lawsuit, not Ms. Kaplan’s ethical misconduct for waiting almost six months until the eve of the trial to tell the court and Trump’s attorneys that Carroll made a false statement during her deposition that she was not receiving any outside funding; and for deceiving the court with her lame excuse for not coming clean earlier about the funding source,” Kamenar told the Daily Signal on Wednesday.

“Nor did the bar committee address our allegation that Kaplan charged excessive fees by charging Carroll a contingency fee plus receiving outside funding from Hoffman,” Kamenar added.

The Daily Signal contacted the Attorney Grievance Committee for comment. A spokesperson did not respond by publication time.

Carroll wrote the 2019 book, “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal,” in which she claimed Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store during the 1990s. Trump denied the allegation and called her a “whack job.”

Carroll 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.

The Daily Signal contacted Kaplan about the committee’s dismissal of the complaint. She did not respond by publication time. However, a spokesperson for the New York law firm Kaplan Martin, where Kaplan practices, referred the Daily Signal to the U.S. 2nd Court of Appeals, which previously rejected Trump’s claim about a lack of disclosure.

The 2nd Circuit determined, “There was no evidence to suggest that Ms. Carroll was personally involved in securing the funding, interacted with the funder, received an invoice showing the arrangement before or after her counsel received the outside funding, or had discussed the arrangement with anyone between learning of it in September 2020 and being deposed in October 2022.”

Kamenar noted that’s why Kaplan’s role should have been reviewed.

The Daily Signal left a voicemail inquiry with the number listed for the American Future Republic’s filing with the Internal Revenue Service, as well as on other websites such as Charity Navigator. The Daily Signal also reached out to Greylock, where Hoffman is part of the investing team. Neither responded by publication time.

Hoffman previously said in a 2023 Washington Post interview that he never tried to keep his funding secret, and, “My team looked at it, thought that her [Carroll’s] voice should be heard because she was challenging someone who was so much wealthier and more powerful, it shouldn’t be squashed.”