The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a $5 million jury verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll.
The justices issued a one-sentence order denying Trump’s request to rehear his appeal, with no explanation and no noted dissents. The decision marks the second time the high court has turned away Trump’s challenge to the 2023 verdict, which found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, 82, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine. Trump, 80, had first petitioned the court in November 2025 after losing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Trump’s lawyers had argued that the trial was tainted by “highly inflammatory” evidentiary rulings. They contended that Judge Lewis Kaplan improperly allowed jurors to hear testimony from two other women, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who had accused Trump of sexual misconduct decades ago. The defense also objected to the admission of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump was recorded describing lewd behavior that he later dismissed as “locker room talk.”
“This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand,” Attorney Justin D. Smith wrote in court documents. Trump has since nominated Smith to serve as a federal appeals court judge.
Carroll’s legal team pushed back hard against the petition. Her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, wrote that Trump’s “entire petition” rested on the “misstatement of fact” that Carroll had falsely accused him of sexual assault. She argued that the other women’s testimony was relevant because the allegations were similar, and that Judge Kaplan’s rulings aligned with those in courts across the country.
“This question is not worthy of review,” Kaplan wrote in her brief to the justices.
Following the court’s denial in June of Trump’s initial appeal, Carroll collected nearly $5.63 million from Trump. The payout represented the original $5 million civil verdict plus interest accrued over three years. Court records confirmed the disbursement to Carroll and her legal team after Judge Kaplan ordered the payment released.
“Three years ago, a unanimous nine-person jury found President Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll,” Roberta Kaplan said in a statement last month after the payment was confirmed. “Today, we are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict.”
After Monday’s Supreme Court action, Kaplan fired back again. “Today’s Supreme Court decision affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll,” she said. “His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions.”
Trump vented his frustration on social media. “This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for,” he wrote in a post reacting to the decision, which he called “surprising,” He added that he would continue fighting the defamation claims.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team issued a statement framing the case as politically motivated persecution. “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” the spokesperson said. “President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
In the viral moment that launched the legal battle, Carroll published an excerpt from her memoir in 2019 in which she alleged that Trump had raped her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. Trump denied her claims, said he had never met her, and declared she was “not my type.” Carroll first filed a defamation lawsuit over those 2019 statements, but the case that led to the $5 million verdict concerned Trump’s fresh denials in 2022. That year, while out of office, he called Carroll’s claim a “hoax” and a “con job” in a social media post. The 2023 jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, though it did not find that he raped her as she had alleged.
The Supreme Court is still weighing Trump’s appeal of a separate $83.3 million jury verdict awarded to Carroll in 2024 over Trump’s 2019 defamatory statements. In that appeal, Trump’s lawyers argue that presidential immunity shields him from Carroll’s claims because he made the denials while serving as president. They have pointed to the court’s landmark 2024 ruling that former presidents have full immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken in office that were within their core constitutional powers. Trump’s attorneys had suggested that if the justices ultimately agree with the immunity defense in the $83.3 million case, it could impact the $5 million verdict as well. The court has not yet acted on that pending appeal, and a Second Circuit stay currently prevents Trump from having to pay the larger judgment.
Trump’s lawyers indicated in a June 2 letter that they expect to file a petition for Supreme Court review of the $83.3 million verdict within the coming weeks, though the exact timing remains unclear after Smith’s departure for the federal bench and a change in lead counsel on the case.