Trump is investigating me to keep me quiet. I choose to speak up.

A jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation. His response is to weaponize the Justice Department against the woman he wronged — and against those who helped her seek justice.

Let me start with what a jury already decided, because Donald Trump would prefer you forget it:

In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and for defaming her, and awarded her $5 million. In 2024, a second jury found that he defamed her, and awarded her $83.3 million in damages. Trump tried to overturn both verdicts on appeal. In September 2025, a federal appeals court rejected Trump’s argument and upheld Carroll’s victory in court. These are verdicts, tested in open court, decided by jurors, and affirmed on appeal.

Now, Trump is using the United States government to come after E. Jean Carroll and after the people who stood beside her. That includes coming after me.

It is hard enough for any woman to come forward and seek justice. It is harder still to do it against the most powerful man on earth, a man who controls the very institutions she has to walk into to be heard. And the message Trump is sending, with the machinery of the Department of Justice behind it, is unmistakable: if you challenge me and win, I will turn the full awesome weight of the United States Government against you.

What’s happening:

We’re still learning more, but here’s what’s going on: This week, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll herself, an 82-year-old writer whose only offense was telling the truth about Donald Trump and being believed by jurors and the country at large. The reported pretext is a question about who helped pay her legal bills –– and as Axios and The Washington Post have reported, the probe reaches towards me, because I helped fund her case.

In other words: the government is investigating the act of helping a woman get justice.

If a President found liable for sexual assault can unleash federal prosecutors on his accuser and her backers, then any powerful abuser — anyone convicted of rape, anyone found liable for assault — becomes more encouraged to do the same. We cannot allow that to happen.

Let me put this plainly: An investigation into E. Jean Carroll’s case continues to encourage other men to keep attacking the women who have accused them of sexual assault and harassment. It also dissuades anyone from supporting these women who courageously seek justice.

It is an attempt to turn solidarity and support into a crime.

The investigation into Carroll’s case is not a one-off. It is the latest move in a sustained campaign to convert the Justice Department from a guardian of the law into an instrument of personal vengeance.

Trump’s administration secured an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. It secured an indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office had successfully sued Trump for fraud. Both of those cases were thrown out by a federal judge who found the prosecutor who brought them had been installed unlawfully.

The Justice Department has opened inquiries into ActBlue and the SPLC. They’ve gone after Trump’s own former officials — cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs and Homeland Security aide Miles Taylor — ordering investigations into them and stripping their clearances after each refused to echo his lies about the 2020 election. It has investigated Senator Adam Schiff. It has reportedly opened legally unprecedented inquiries into half a dozen Democratic lawmakers, a sitting governor, and a big-city mayor, several of them tied to nothing more than their work to defeat Trump.

As Trump told his supporters during the campaign: “I am your retribution.” He meant it. The Weaponization Working Group at the DOJ, the loyalist appointments, the “name and shame” threats against people who can’t be charged are the mechanics of a man who promised to use the state against his enemies and is now keeping that promise.

This is authoritarianism in action, and it is accelerating in force and breadth.

But Trump’s actions only work if we bend the knee.

Trump thinks this fabricated investigation will do three things: silence women, concentrate his power, and try to prevent me from continuing to give financial support to his opponents (whether it be sexual assault survivors, politicians seeking office, or organizations fighting on behalf of the American People). He thinks fear is contagious and courage is not.

He is wrong.

Let me be clear about where I stand. I am proud to provide financial support to candidates who will continue to stand up to Trump and stand for the American people. I am proud to have helped make the point that in America, abusers do not get to bully their way off the hook simply because they are rich or powerful or hold high office.

I will keep supporting E Jean Carroll. I will keep supporting candidates and organizations working to make our country a better place. And I will keep standing with women who find the courage to come forward.

A justice system that punishes the people who use it is not a justice system, but a protection racket. And the answer to a protection racket is not to pay the protection, but to refuse, out loud, together.

That refusal is the most American thing I can think of. We are a country founded on the radical idea that no one is above the law, not a king, not a President. The people trying to bury that idea are betting that the rest of us are too tired, too scared, or too distracted to defend it.

I’m betting they’re wrong about us. I think most Americans still believe in two simple things: the truth and justice. I think we will prove it.