WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court handed a loss to President Donald Trump on Monday by refusing to hear his attempt to overturn a jury’s finding that he sexually abused and later defamed writer E. Jean Carroll.
The justices turned away Trump’s appeal, meaning the 2023 jury verdict and a $5 million civil judgment remain in place.
The case arose from a federal lawsuit Carroll filed in New York City alleging that Trump assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in 1996. The defamation claims relate to statements he made about her after his first term in office, in which he described her claims as a “con job” and “hoax.”
Trump blasted the ruling on social media and vowed to keep fighting the case “with all of my power and strength,” even though the justices seemed to shut the door on the verdict.
Trump referred to Carroll as a “woman I never met (Decades old celebrity photo line, standing with her husband, does not count!),” he wrote Monday, referring to a picture that emerged of him and Carroll after he first said he’d never met her. Trump’s insistence he’d never met her was a part of Carroll’s defamation case, and a jury sided with her.
“This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for, and should never be allowed to happen to another President, or Candidate to be!” he said. He added that “this Injustice cannot be allowed to stand!”
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said of the high court’s move, “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.”
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement: “Today’s Supreme Court decision affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions.”
Carroll first made her allegations in 2019, and she sued Trump, who was serving his first term, for defamation later that year after he called her a liar who’d made up the claim to get rich.
While that case was tied up in court over legal questions about presidential immunity for his comments, she filed a second suit in 2022, in part under a New York state law aimed at assisting survivors of sexual assault from years ago.
The second suit, which included post-presidency defamation claims against Trump, was the first to go to trial, and it was the case the Supreme Court declined to hear Monday.
Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations, with his lawyers noting that Carroll never reported the incident to the police and that there were no witnesses. Trump’s legal team said in a court filing that Carroll waited until he was president to bring her claims so she could “maximize political injury to him and profit for herself.”
On appeal, Trump had argued that Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan shouldn’t have allowed testimony from other women, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who had accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Trump also denied those allegations.
Trump’s lawyers also said Kaplan shouldn’t have allowed jurors to view the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump could be heard speaking disparagingly about women.
Trump’s lawyers argued that, taken together, Kaplan’s decisions to allow the evidence not directly tied to Carroll’s claims helped boost her case and cover up for the lack of direct evidence relating to her specific allegations.
Carroll’s lawyers noted that she told two friends about the alleged attack shortly after it happened and that both testified at the trial.The attorneys said in court papers that Kaplan correctly allowed the evidence to be admitted, as it speaks to Trump’s alleged previous conduct and his propensity to take the kind of actions she claimed in her lawsuit.
They also pointed out that the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the jury verdict in 2024, found that the issues about which evidence should have been admitted at trial weren’t a determining factor in upholding the verdict.
Carroll filed a separate defamation claim against Trump, not at issue at the Supreme Court, that led to an $83.3 million judgment. The earlier case, concerning statements Trump made while he was in his first term in office, is still on appeal. Trump argues that the claims should be dismissed on the basis of presidential immunity.
