Ivy Meeropol, director of Ask E. Jean, the documentary about E. Jean Carroll who successfully sued Donald Trump for defamation and battery, is responding to reports the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Carroll.

“Unbelievable, yet not surprising,” Meeropol says of the reports by the New York Times and CNN which said the Justice Department planned to examine whether Carroll committed perjury when she testified she was unaware of anyone financially supporting her lawsuits against Pres. Trump, which stemmed from an incident in the mid-1990s when Carroll said Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store. It was later revealed billionaire Reid Hoffman, a cofounder of LinkedIn and fierce Trump critic, had picked up some of the legal costs of the suits.

The U.S. Attorney in Northern Illinois who is overseeing the matter issued a statement denying Carroll was the target of an investigation, but sources tell CNN and the New York Times that could change.

“When I first heard [of the reported investigation], I did yell like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’’ Meeropol tells Deadline. “I was shocked, but also not surprised because this is par for the course for [Trump]. It’s just pure vindictiveness is how I see it.”

We spoke Friday night in Los Angeles where the filmmaker traveled for the theatrical opening of Ask E. Jean at Landmark’s NuArt Theatre on the west side. In New York City, the documentary is being held over for a second week at IFC Center due to popular demand.

“We started to realize that there were packed houses — even the matinees were drawing people,” Meeropol says of the IFC extension. “Then we heard we were being held over. I was thrilled and I hope we keep getting held over. There’s been a lot of enthusiasm.”

The film, which premiered at Telluride last year, explores how Carroll became a popular advice columnist, writing the “Ask E. Jean” column for Elle magazine for over 25 years, as well as hosting a show on the NBC cable network America’s Talking that was also titled Ask E. Jean. In 2019, inspired by the #MeToo movement, Carroll published an article in New York magazine detailing her sexual assault allegations against Trump, and expanded on them in her book What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal. Trump responded by calling Carroll a liar and labeling her allegations a “made up scam.” That prompted Carroll to file a defamation suit. After New York State passed a law allowing adult survivors of sexual assault to file civil suits beyond the statute of limitations, Caroll filed a second suit accusing him of battery and defamation. Judgments in those cases in her favor total almost $90 million.

“It’s likely that the Supreme Court will have the final word on both cases,” the New York Times writes. “One dispute is already before the justices. The second appears to be headed to the court in the coming months.”

“He has not paid out a dime,” Meeropol says of Trump. “And now it’ll be at the Supreme Court.”

The possible Justice Department investigation adds a new wrinkle to E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump.

“The probe is the latest move in the department’s ceaseless, and somewhat strained, efforts to meet Trump’s demands to target his long-standing personal foes,” CNN writes. The New York Times comments, “Ms. Carroll and her benefactor [Reid Hoffman] are being scrutinized by a department in which naming and shaming, as opposed to securing convictions, is considered a legitimate aim of law enforcement. Since Mr. Trump has returned to office, he has not hesitated to single out his purported enemies as potential targets, even before criminal charges are in the offing.”

Meeropol tells Deadline, “I definitely want to say that there’s no merit to this so-called criminal investigation that I can tell and the E. Jean I know is an incredibly honest person. And you see the film, you’re going to see the truth and he [Trump] doesn’t like that he lost to her [in court].”

Meeropol doesn’t necessarily see it as coincidental that reports of possible Justice Department action surfaced days after Ask E. Jean opened in New York.

“We premiered the film just one week ago in New York City, got a lot of attention in New York City. Well, that’s [Trump’s] hometown,” Meeropol notes. “And I published an op-ed in the New York Times [on May 20]. I talked about the challenges of making this film under this shadow of Trump. And then a week later, lo and behold, so I’ll let you decide or let your readers… put that together.”

As my colleague Jill Goldsmith reported Friday, Ask E. Jean is booked into more than 40 theaters over the next month. Abramorama is distributing the film, Goldsmith wrote, “working with nonprofit Theorem Media which built a large partner network and assembled an Influential Women Collective that includes Amber Tamblyn, Aurora James, Cecily Strong and Ann Shoket. Theorem’s organic social campaign reached half a million views in the lead-up to and through the doc’s opening.”