The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into a nonprofit run by billionaire Reid Hoffman that funded a portion of author E. Jean Carroll's civil litigation against President Trump, several sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

The investigation, which is being led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, is looking into possible crimes including money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction, the sources said. 

CBS News could not immediately learn what prompted the investigation or determine the legal theory of the case. Hoffman could not be immediately reached for comment.

On Wednesday evening, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News that the investigation was focused on whether Carroll had committed perjury during a deposition in connection with her civil lawsuits against Mr. Trump in which she alleged he had sexually abused and defamed her.

On Thursday, however, that source followed up and said Carroll is not the target of the investigation, which is focused on funding that Hoffman's nonprofit, American Future Republic, provided to help cover some of her legal team's expenses.

On Thursday evening, after this report published, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Andrew Boutros, said in a statement on X: "In light of wide-spread reporting and intense media and public interest into the E. Jean Carroll matter in New York, the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office can confirm that it has not opened—and has never opened—a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll. Any claim to the contrary is categorically false."

Two separate sources also confirmed that the probe is focused on the American Future Republic. One of the sources added that while the perjury allegations against Carroll were part of the original referral that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago received earlier this year, prosecutors there are not pursuing that line of inquiry at this time.

Counsel for Carroll declined to comment.

Carroll accused Mr. Trump of sexually abusing her in a New York City department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, and she published an account of the encounter in New York Magazine in 2019. Mr. Trump subsequently denied assaulting her and said Carroll wasn't his "type." In 2019, Carroll sued Mr. Trump for defamation, but the case stalled in court.

She then filed a second defamation lawsuit in 2022, adding a claim of rape under New York's Adult Survivors Act.

Carroll sued Mr. Trump in two civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation. In 2023, a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation for comments he made in 2022. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages.

A second jury in 2024 found him liable for defamation in connection with comments he had made about Carroll in 2019, awarding her $83.3 million in damages. Both judgments were upheld on appeal.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented Mr. Trump on some of the litigation while it was on appeal, is recused from the case in Chicago related to E. Jean Carroll and the funding for her litigation, one source added.

Hoffman's financial backing for Carroll's lawsuit was first revealed in legal papers filed by Mr. Trump's attorneys in April 2023, just ahead of the trial in the first defamation lawsuit, according to the New York Times.

When Mr. Trump's attorneys brought the issue up on appeal, the appeals court found that Carroll had "plausibly represented" in her deposition "that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained." 

"Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District wrote in its 2024 ruling. 

Mr. Trump's lawyers at the time had argued that her misstatements over outside funding raised questions about her credibility, but the court found that litigation funding was not relevant to the case at hand.

Hoffman is listed as the president and chairman of the board of directors for American Future Republic on tax records. In its 2020 990 filing, it disclosed that it provided $7 million to Kaplan Hecker & Fink, the law firm that represented Carroll.

The nonprofit is based in Chicago.

In a May 2023 interview with the Washington Post, Hoffman explained why he chose to help fund Carroll's legal action, saying that "we didn't encourage the lawsuit to happen — we only got on board after she'd already filed."

"My team looked at it, thought that her voice should be heard because she was challenging someone who was so much more wealthy and powerful, it shouldn't be squashed," Hoffman said.