WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Aug. 17 rejected President Donald Trump's second attempt to revive his appeal of a 2023 civil jury verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, leaving a judgment of more than $5.6 million—the original $5 million award plus interest—fully intact and unchallengeable.
The court offered no explanation for the denial, which is standard practice for applications of this kind. It was the second time the justices turned away Trump's bid: they first declined his appeal on June 29, at which point the $5 million judgment plus accrued interest became due. Trump's lawyers then took the unusual step of asking the court to reconsider, a request the justices grant only rarely.
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the outcome is definitive. "The jury's unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E. Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court," Kaplan said in a statement following the ruling.
Trump's lawyers had argued that reconsideration was justified because the $5 million case is linked to a separate Carroll suit in which they have already asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal. In that second case, a Manhattan civil jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million from Trump in 2024, concluding he defamed her in 2019 when he first denied her allegations publicly.
The legal theory connecting the two cases centers on presidential immunity. Trump's legal team argued that statements he made in 2019 denying Carroll's accusations were official presidential acts—protected from use as evidence under the Supreme Court's own 2024 ruling that presidents cannot face criminal prosecution for official conduct. "That use of official Presidential statements matters, because this Court has made clear that official Presidential acts may not be used as evidence to impose liability for other conduct," Trump's lawyers told the justices.
The immunity argument was not raised during the original appeal of the $5 million verdict, and Trump's lawyers acknowledged why: the Supreme Court had not yet issued its 2024 immunity ruling when they filed that earlier appeal. They said the subsequent ruling created new grounds that warranted a second look from the court. The justices disagreed, declining without comment.
The dispute traces to 1996, when Carroll alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at a Manhattan department store. Trump denied the accusation publicly in 2019, claiming Carroll fabricated the story to sell a book. Carroll sued him shortly after, and the litigation ran through two separate trials spanning nearly a decade.
The first trial, in 2023, ended with a New York jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse—not rape, the legal distinction the jury drew—and defamation, producing the $5 million verdict. The second trial produced the $83.3 million judgment in 2024, based on a separate defamation claim stemming from a 2022 social media post in which Trump again denied Carroll's account. That second suit was made possible by a special statutory window New York opened for sexual abuse survivors to file claims that would otherwise be time-barred. Federal appeals courts upheld both judgments.
With the $5 million case now closed, Trump's remaining legal exposure in the Carroll litigation is the $83.3 million verdict—nearly 17 times larger—which remains the subject of his pending Supreme Court appeal. That case, built on the presidential immunity argument his lawyers could not raise in the first suit, is still alive. The court has not yet decided whether to take it up.
The immunity question in the $83.3 million case is distinct from the closed $5 million matter. Trump's lawyers contend his 2019 denial, made from the White House, qualifies as an official presidential statement shielded under the court's own precedent. Carroll's legal team disputes that characterization, and lower courts have not accepted the immunity defense in the defamation context. Whether the Supreme Court grants certiorari in that second case will determine whether the larger judgment faces any further challenge.
