The US Supreme Court has again refused to revive Donald Trump’s appeal against a $5 million (€4.3 million) verdict awarded to E Jean Carroll, leaving in place the finding that he sexually abused and defamed the former magazine columnist.
The justices turned down Mr Trump’s request to revisit their June decision rejecting his challenge to the 2023 jury verdict. That case arose from Ms Carroll’s allegation that he raped her in the 1990s inside a dressing room at a Manhattan department store.
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Lawyers for President Trump have argued that the trial was conducted unfairly.
The unsigned order offered no explanation for the court’s decision.
The justices are also considering whether to hear Mr Trump’s appeal of a separate $83.3 million (€71.8 million) jury award over statements he made about Ms Carroll in 2019, during his first term as president. At the time, he denied her allegations and accused her of lying.
In that appeal, Mr Trump’s lawyers maintain that presidential immunity protects him from Ms Carroll’s claims. They also argue that lower courts were wrong to conclude he had forfeited that defence.
US President Donald Trump denied E Jean Carroll’s claims
Mr Trump and Ms Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, have been locked in legal battles since 2019, when she published an excerpt from her memoir alleging that he raped her around 1996 in a dressing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store.
The president rejected Ms Carroll’s account and said she had fabricated the allegations, first in 2019 and again in 2022, after he had left office.
The lawsuit that produced the $5 million verdict focused on remarks Mr Trump made in 2022, when he described Ms Carroll’s allegation as a “hoax” and a “con job” in a social media post.
A jury in 2023 found that Mr Trump had sexually abused Ms Carroll and defamed her, although it did not find that he had raped her, as she alleged.
After the Supreme Court declined to hear Mr Trump’s appeal in June, Ms Carroll received nearly $5.63 million from him.
The sum included the original $5 million civil award along with interest.
In seeking a rehearing, Mr Trump’s lawyers argued that the question of presidential immunity in the case involving the $83.3 million verdict, issued by a jury in 2024 and still under consideration by the justices, could also affect the 2023 judgment.
In a landmark 2024 ruling, the Supreme Court held that former presidents enjoy full immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts carried out within their core constitutional powers.
The cases brought by Ms Carroll are civil lawsuits.
