Court nixes Trump's new appeal in Carroll case
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rejected for the second time an effort by President Donald Trump to avoid paying more than $5.6 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually abusing and defaming her.
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The court on august 17 [2026] declined to reconsider Trump's appeal of a 2023 jury verdict in a civil suit brought by Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine.
..... Trump had to pay Carroll nearly $5.63 million - the $5 million judgment plus interest - after the court first rejected his appeal on June 29. [2026]
..... His lawyers fought the payment, arguing he deserved a chance to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider his request.
..... It's rare fro litigants to ask for a second look - and even rarer for the court to grant one.
..... Trump's lawyers said reconsideration was warranted because the case in connected to another appeal involving Carroll that they have asked the Supreme Court to hear.
.... In that case, a Manhattan civil jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million from Trump in 2024 based on the conclusion that Trump defamed her in 2019 when he first denied her allegations.
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Trump's lawyer have argued he should have immunity for his 2019 comments because he made them while serving as president.
..... The Carroll cases are civil, not criminal lawsuits.
..... The dispute started in 2019 when Carroll published an excerpt from her memoir in which she alleged that Trump had ranted her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. Trump fired back with allegations that she was making up the story to sell her book.
..... Carroll sued him months later, eventually winning the $83.3 million judgment.
..... As the case was going, Trump repeated the denial in a social media post in 2022. Carroll then sued Trump again under a special window of time that New York granted to sexual abuse survivors and in 2023, a New York jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against Carroll. That resulted in the $5 million verdict.
..... Federal appeals courts upheld both judgments.
..... Contributing: Reuters