Trump’s E. Jean Carroll Appeal Turned Back by Supreme Court as Sex Advice Columnist Cements $5 Million Victory

The Supreme Court’s denial on Monday of President Trump’s last-ditch effort to persuade the justices to overturn the $5 million he paid to the sex and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll is another litigation victory for the octogenarian journalist.Denial of the motion for a rehearing came in a routine order list and made no mention of dissent or comments. It was handed down during the high court’s summer vacation, which suggests that the justices did not discuss the question in person. Successful motions for rehearing — which asks the court to reconsider a question on which it has already ruled — are vanishingly rare, with the last successful one coming in 1965.In June, the Supreme Court declined Mr. Trump’s initial appeal to disturb the $5 million verdict secured by Ms. Carroll when a Manhattan jury determined in 2023 that Mr. Trump sexually abused and then defamed Ms. Carroll following an alleged encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room sometime in the mid-1990s. Ms. Carroll was able to bring that suit some three decades later because of a new law that extended the statute of limitations in cases like hers. In July, Ms. Carroll was paid $5.6 million — the judgment plus interest — awarded to her in that initial case. In a separate trial, in January of 2024, another jury awarded her $83.3 million after finding that Mr. Trump further defamed the long-time Elle Magazine writer by declaring that her claims were a “complete scam,” a “made-up story,” and a “hoax.” He said with respect to Ms. Carroll that “Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened.”With interest, the second verdict brought the total amount owed to Ms. Carroll by Mr. Trump to over $100 million. The Second United States Appeals Circuit refused Mr. Trump’s entreaties to overturn both that judgment and the earlier $5 million one. Mr. Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to review the larger verdict, with the justices set to decide whether to take the case in the fall.Mr. Trump’s petition for certiorari for the $83 million judgment centers on presidential immunity. He argues that the defamatory statements at issue were made in 2019, toward the end of his first term as president — and therefore ought to have been protected by the protections of the office. He points to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States, from 2024, that official presidential actions are presumptively immune from prosecution.Trump, though, covered criminal prosecutions of former presidents — sitting ones are still protected by a “categorical” ban on prosecution adopted by the Department of Justice. The Supreme Court held in 1982’s Nixon v. Fitzgerald that presidents possess absolute immunity from civil damages liability for any official acts while in office. The question on appeal, then, will be whether the defamatory statements about Ms. Carroll can fall under the overhang of presidential duties.A similar question arose in the course of the trial of Mr. Trump for hush money payments to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. That trial ended in Mr. Trump being convicted on all 34 counts brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. Mr. Trump argued, both during trial and on appeal, that the case ought to be precluded by presidential immunity. Those petitions were unsuccessful in both state and federal court. Ms. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declared in a statement on Monday, “We are pleased that the United States Supreme Court has declined again to hear this case. As a result, 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.”A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team thundered on Monday that “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. President Trump will keep winning against liberal lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to make America great again.”

Trump’s E. Jean Carroll Appeal Turned Back by Supreme Court as Sex Advice Columnist Cements $5 Million Victory

Trump’s E. Jean Carroll Appeal Turned Back by Supreme Court as Sex Advice Columnist Cements $5 Million Victory

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