Conservative Watchdog Demands New Ethics Probe Of E. Jean Carroll Lawyer Over Reid Hoffman Funding

Jean Carroll, arguing that the lawyer failed to fully disclose the role of Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman in financing Carrolls defamation case against President Donald Trump.

The National Legal and Policy Center, a right-leaning ethics watchdog, initially filed its grievance in July with the Attorney Grievance Committee against Roberta Kaplan, Carrolls high-profile attorney. According to WND, the group contends Kaplan was not forthright about Hoffmans financial backing, despite his status as a prominent Democratic donor and co-founder of LinkedIn, in the litigation that has been used aggressively by Trumps political opponents to damage the president.

By August, the Attorney Grievance Committee had summarily dismissed the complaint without squarely addressing the central issue of whether Kaplan had an ethical duty to disclose Hoffmans role in funding the lawsuit. The dismissal was made without conducting any investigation, let alone a thorough investigation that this committee promises to undertake for misconduct complaints, the appeal filed by Paul Kamenar, chief counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center, says.

The watchdogs appeal stresses that the core of its original complaint was the timing and manner in which Kaplan corrected the record regarding outside funding of Carrolls litigation. The appeal said the essence of the original complaint was that Kaplan waited almost six months after the deposition of her client, E. Jean Carroll, until the eve of trial to correct Ms. Carrolls false statement in an October 2022 deposition that she was not receiving any outside funding for her defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump.

Kamenars filing accuses Kaplan of violating New Yorks rules of professional conduct by failing to promptly inform the courtand potentially her own clientabout Hoffmans financial involvement. The complaint argued that such nondisclosure misled the court in a politically charged case that has been leveraged to portray Trump as both legally and morally compromised, while shielding from scrutiny the partisan funding network behind Carrolls legal team.

Public records appear to confirm that Hoffmans nonprofit vehicle, American Future Republic, played a direct role in underwriting Carrolls legal offensive. Tax filings from 2023 for Hoffmans nonprofit, American Future Republic, show it paid to Carrolls lawyers to help cover legal expenses, even though in October 2022, Carroll was asked under oath if anyone else [is] paying your legal fees and Carroll answered, No.

Carroll has already secured major financial judgments against Trump, outcomes that critics say have been celebrated by the left as political victories as much as legal ones. Carroll won a $5 million payout from Trump in a sexual assault and defamation lawsuit, upheld by the Supreme Court, and in a separate defamation lawsuit, she won an $83 million judgment against Trump, which the high court has not yet ruled on.

Attorney Grievance Committee Chief Counsel Jorge Dopico rejected the ethics complaint on the grounds that the underlying issue had already been handled by the trial court overseeing Carrolls case. Kamenar, however, argues that this rationale sidesteps the distinct question of Kaplans professional obligations as an officer of the court, which go beyond whatever the judge may have decided about Carrolls own testimony.

In fact, the matter that was brought before the court was not Ms. Kaplans unethical conduct but whether her client had lied under oath in her deposition by answering No to defense counsels question as to whether she was receiving outside funding, the appeal says. The court addressed that matter by allowing counsel to depose Ms. Carroll again limited to the subject of Ms. Carrolls knowledge of the financing assistance as of the date of her deposition and as of the present.

The appeal, filed Tuesday, was formally directed to Attorney Grievance Committee Co-Chairs Tina M. Wells and Milton L. Williams Jr., urging them to overturn Dopicos summary dismissal. Kamenar is effectively asking the committee to demonstrate that the states disciplinary system applies equally, even when the lawyer in question is aligned with powerful Democratic interests and engaged in litigation against a Republican president.

Kamenar has not minced words about what he believes is at stake if the committee refuses to reopen the matter. If the committee does not reverse the summary dismissal of our complaint, it smacks of a coverup, Kamenar told the Daily Signal.

The Daily Signal reported that it contacted the New York law firm of Kaplan Martin, where Kaplan practices, but the office did not respond by publication time. The Daily Signal also reached out to a spokesman for Hoffman, who did not respond by publication time, leaving unanswered questions about how the funding arrangement was structured and communicated to Carroll and the court.

Previously, a Kaplan Martin spokesman declined substantive comment and instead pointed to a ruling from the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals, which had rejected Trumps claim that there was an improper lack of disclosure. That appellate decision, however, did not directly address the specific allegations of professional misconduct by Kaplan that the National Legal and Policy Center is now pressing before the disciplinary authorities.

In its review of Carrolls answer to whether the lawsuit was getting outside funding, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 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. That finding effectively insulated Carroll from accusations of intentional perjury, but it did not resolve whether her counsel had an independent duty to clarify the record sooner in a case freighted with partisan implications.

Hoffman, for his part, has publicly defended his role in bankrolling efforts targeting Trump and other Republicans, casting his spending as a necessary counterweight to conservative power. 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 [Carrolls] voice should be heard because she was challenging someone who was so much more wealthy and powerfulit shouldnt be squashed.

For conservatives concerned about transparency, equal justice, and the politicization of the legal system, the unresolved question is whether New Yorks disciplinary apparatus will scrutinize the conduct of a well-connected progressive attorney with the same rigor it might apply to a lawyer on the right. The National Legal and Policy Centers appeal effectively challenges the state bar to show that partisan alignment and billionaire backing do not place certain lawyers above the ethical rules that are supposed to govern the profession.