Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations throughout the case.
Why did Trump appeal the verdict?
Trump’s lawyers argued that the judge who oversaw the civil trial wrongly allowed evidence that, in their view, shaped the jury’s impression of him unfairly.
In their Supreme Court petition, they specifically objected to jurors being shown the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump was recorded saying he groped and kissed women.
Trump has repeatedly said Carroll lied and previously claimed she was “not my type.” Her defamation claim centered on a 2022 post on Trump’s Truth Social platform, where he denied her allegation and called the incident a hoax.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case was Trump’s final chance to overturn the unanimous jury verdict in this matter.
What did E Jean Carroll’s lawyer say?
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the Supreme Court’s decision “affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E Jean Carroll”.
“His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions,” Kaplan added.
Carroll’s legal team had not previously commented on Trump’s decision to take the challenge to the Supreme Court.
How did Trump respond?
Trump reacted in a lengthy post on Truth Social, saying he would continue fighting what he called a “Weaponization and Lawfare Case”, including “the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength”.
“This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for, and should never be allowed to happen to another President, or Candidate to be,” he wrote.
He also attacked the New York law that allowed Carroll to bring the civil claim decades after the alleged assault, writing: “New York State created a Law, for an instant speck of time, going back many decades, in order to wrongfully ‘nab’ me. It was tailormade, and this Injustice cannot be allowed to stand!”
What other Carroll judgment is Trump facing?
This Supreme Court decision concerns the $5 million award from the 2023 civil trial.
Trump is also facing a separate $83 million defamation judgment another jury awarded Carroll after he continued commenting on the case and the jury’s findings. A panel of federal judges denied his appeal of that decision in September.
Together, the rulings cap a years-long legal fight Carroll began after publicly accusing Trump of attacking her in the 1990s. The Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene does not erase the years of dispute over her account, but it closes Trump’s last available challenge to the original jury verdict.
