US Justice Department investigate Donald Trump for sexual assault

The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll lied during the course of civil litigation

against US President Donald Trump, who Carroll says sexually assaulted her in a New York department store 30 years ago.

Supporters of E. Jean Carroll gather in New York to condemn the Justice Department's reported investigation into the writer

calling it political retaliation tied to President Donald Trump.

Sonia Ossorio, President of Women's Justice NOW said We are here today outraged and here to condemn the Department of Justice

for launching an investigation into E. Jean Carroll. We all know what this is about.

This is retribution from Donald Trump, and it is incredibly alarming.

It is only the latest retribution and the full example of him, fully capturing the Department of Justice. E. Jean Carroll went through the court system.

She did what every American has the right to do.

A jury of 12 people in a civil court found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse.

And now at 82 years old, she has to worry about the full weight of the largest law enforcement division in the world coming after her.

Carroll first went public with her story about being sexually assaulted by Trump in June 2019, when an excerpt from her soon-to-be-released

memoir 'What Do We Need Men For?" was published in New York magazine. In the book, she describes bumping into Trump while shopping at

Bergdorf Goodman, flirting with him, then physically fighting him off after he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room.

The claims drew angry denials from Trump who said in a statement, "I've never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book -

that should be sold in the fiction section." In 2019, Carroll filed a libel lawsuit against Trump saying his claims that she made the story up had smeared her integrity, honesty and dignity - all in the national press.

This is the latest in a series of investigations the Trump administration Justice Department has opened into perceived adversaries of the president.