Supreme Court won’t hear Trump’s bid to overturn Carroll sexual abuse verdict

Court Battles Supreme Court won’t hear Trump’s bid to overturn Carroll sexual abuse verdict by Zach Schonfeld - 06/29/26 9:42 AM ET Link copied by Zach Schonfeld - 06/29/26 9:42 AM ET Link copied

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The Supreme Court refused President Trump’s request on Monday to overturn a jury’s verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and defaming her.

It leaves intact the $5 million award that became a dominant prong of Trump’s personal legal troubles as he plotted his way back to the White House. Trump maintains that Carroll is making up her story and argues the trial was tainted with highly prejudicial evidence.

The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal without any noted dissents. The justices choose which cases they take up and turn away the vast majority.

Carroll came forward publicly during Trump’s first presidency with claims that he assaulted her roughly two decades earlier in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store located in Midtown Manhattan.

The longtime advice columnist took Trump to trial twice in New York and won.

The Supreme Court’s order concerns the first trial. While jurors voted that Trump shouldn’t be held liable for rape, they agreed he was on the hook for a lesser form of sexual battery. They also said Trump’s denials of Carroll’s story amounted to defamation, awarding her $5 million.

Carroll won another $83.3 million at her second trial, which involved additional defamation claims. The judge had ruled the earlier verdict made Trump automatically liable. He is appealing that case separately and has signaled he may still ask the Supreme Court to declare the judgment excessive.

Trump’s appeal of the first verdict revolved around claims that the jury improperly heard from two other women who’ve separately accused Trump of sexual assault, which Trump denies, and that the judge shouldn’t have allowed the playing of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump is heard bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.

“It is deeply damaging to the fabric of our Republic for President Trump, in the midst of a historic presidency, to have to take his focus away from his singular and unique duties as Chief Executive to continue fighting against decades-old, false allegations and the myriad wrongs throughout this baseless case,” Trump’s lawyers wrote to the Supreme Court.

“This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand,” they continued.

The Hill has reached out to spokespeople for Trump’s and Carroll’s legal teams for comment.

The president’s petition attracted outside support from conservative groups like the American First Legal Foundation and the Article III Project as well as 11 Republican-led states.

Carroll urged the Supreme Court to turn away the case, saying that Trump’s claims weren’t worth the justices’ attention and had procedural defects.

“In short, there is no disagreement among the courts of appeals as to the legal rule,” her attorneys wrote in court filings. “Any difference in whether evidence was admitted in a particular case simply reflects the district courts’ exercise of judgment and discretion in factbound contexts.”

Updated at 9:54 a.m. EDT

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