The US Supreme Court declined President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a civil jury verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E Jean Carroll. This marks the second time the nation’s highest court has rejected Trump’s efforts to review the case, following a similar denial earlier this year in June.
Trump has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings and argued that the judge presiding over the civil trial improperly allowed prejudicial evidence to be presented to jurors. Specifically, his legal team contended that jurors should not have been permitted to view Access Hollywood footage from 2005 in which Trump used explicit language while discussing inappropriate conduct toward women. Trump’s attorneys requested that the Supreme Court reconsider its previous rejection, though legal experts characterized such motions as highly unusual long-shot maneuvers that courts rarely grant.
In July, Trump paid Carroll more than $5 million in damages related to her civil claim of sexual assault in the mid-1990s, though he continued to deny the allegations and characterized the incident as a hoax on social media. Carroll, a former magazine columnist now 82 years old, had sued Trump over an alleged attack in a Manhattan department store dressing room. The defamation component of the case stemmed from a 2022 post on Truth Social in which Trump denied her claims and stated she was “not my type.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Carroll expressed gratitude to her legal team and supporters through a newsletter, stating that individual efforts combined with strong legal representation could achieve significant outcomes. Her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declared that the jury’s verdict finding Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation is now final and cannot be challenged further in any court.
Separately, Trump has also petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn another federal civil defamation verdict awarding Carroll $83.3 million, with his lawyers arguing that Trump cannot be sued for comments made while serving as president. The Supreme Court has not yet issued a decision on that case.
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