E. Jean Carroll achieved the unthinkable and might end up paying a price for it. While prosecutors across the country, including the U.S. government, were scrambling to hold President Donald Trump accountable for crimes ranging from election interference to racketeering, Carroll successfully prosecuted Trump for sexually abusing her. And after a jury awarded her $5 million in damages, she won an additional defamation lawsuit against Trump for denying said abuse, and he now owes her $83 million. Three years and a successful presidential campaign later, Trump is out for revenge.

The Justice Department, according to CNN, has launched a criminal investigation into the 82-year-old journalist for not disclosing during a deposition in her sexual-abuse lawsuit the fact that Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman paid for some of her legal fees. Meanwhile, Hoffman is reportedly also subject to his own, separate DOJ investigation regarding the funding of suits against Trump (a practice that is legal). All of this is par for the course in an administration that has made it clear it’s dead set on using the DOJ to exact pain on Trump’s perceived enemies. At the same time, as with many similar cases, the department’s chances of successfully targeting Carroll are slim, but success may not be the point—rather, the goal is to intimidate others who might come forward with incriminating information about the president.

During the deposition in question, Carroll told Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal attorney and the same woman who failed to secure the U.S. attorney for New Jersey gig, that she hadn’t received any outside funding to pay for her legal fees because she had a contingency agreement with her attorneys: They........

© Slate