NEW YORK - Lordstown Motor's stock (RIDE) briefly paused trading on the NASDAQ exchange Friday morning after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department is probing Lordstown Motors.

Trading was halted at 11:29 a.m. and resumed five minutes later in a trading pause allowed when stock prices become volatile.

RIDE shares opened at $10.34 on Friday and dipped to $8.94 before trading was paused.

Citing information from people familiar with the matter, the Journal’s exclusive report states that the investigation is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan.

The report says the probe is in its early stages and that LMC had no comment.

Lordstown Motors admitted in March that it was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission following a report that the startup company had exaggerated claims of pre-orders for its Endurance all-electric pickup truck.

Steven Burns, who was the source of some of those pre-order claims, resigned as the company's CEO on the same day LMC announced that an in-house investigation determined that some of those claims may have been overblown.

The company is also the target of a class-action lawsuit from investors who say some executives were not forthcoming with information about the company's ability to meet its production dates.

One lawsuit has alleged that some company executives engaged in insider trading.

The same in-house committee that investigated the pre-order issue also claimed that those transactions were made for reasons unrelated to the performance of the company or viability of the Endurance, and each executive retained substantial Lordstown Motors equity holdings in the form of shares and options.

New company executives have said that they still have a September production date but need more capital to market Endurance to its full potential.