The Supreme Court has denied President Trump's petition for rehearing of the $5 million E. Jean Carroll civil judgment for a second time, leaving him with no remaining legal avenue to challenge that verdict.
The justices published the denial Monday in their orders list without comment or recorded dissent, closing the book on Trump's effort to overturn a jury's finding that he was liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer in the mid-1990s. Trump's legal team had filed the rehearing petition after the Court initially rejected his appeal at the end of June, arguing that a related Carroll case raising presidential immunity questions warranted reconsideration.
That argument fell flat. Supreme Court rules restrict rehearing petitions to cases involving intervening circumstances with a "substantial or controlling effect," and Fox News reported the request faced steep odds from the start. Attorney Michael Martinich-Sauter, filing on behalf of Trump, had urged the Court to "grant rehearing, and either grant the petition in this case, or hold it pending the disposition of the petition in Carroll I."
The Court was unmoved.
Trump had tried to delay paying the $5 million judgment until the justices ruled on his rehearing petition. That effort also failed. Court filings revealed Trump has already paid $5.62 million to Carroll, the original judgment plus interest, following the Court's June 29 denial of certiorari.
But the larger fight is still ahead. A separate $83.3 million defamation judgment against Trump remains under appellate review. Trump appealed that verdict to the Supreme Court last month, and his lawyers plan to argue that presidential immunity under Trump v. United States (2024) shields him from those claims. The Court is not expected to decide whether to hear that appeal until October at the earliest.
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, framed Monday's denial as a definitive win. As the New York Post reported, Kaplan said:
"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."
Trump has consistently denied Carroll's accusations, maintaining the encounter never happened. Carroll was unable to remember the year the alleged assault took place and did not produce physical evidence, the Washington Examiner noted. When the Court first rejected his appeal in June, Trump said he was surprised but vowed to "continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength."
A Trump spokesperson echoed that stance, declaring that "the American People stand with President Trump" in demanding an end to such cases.
The Carroll rehearing denial adds to a growing list of Supreme Court setbacks for the administration this year. The justices have ruled against Trump on sweeping tariffs, his executive order on birthright citizenship, and his bid to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. Trump called on the Court to rehear the birthright citizenship case after a narrow 5-4 ruling went against him, a pattern of the administration refusing to accept adverse rulings without exhausting every procedural option.
The Court has not been uniformly hostile, however. Trump secured wins in cases affirming his firing power across most of the executive branch and in his bid to end temporary protected status for various countries. Justice Elena Kagan herself defended the Court's independence and rejected the idea that the justices serve as a rubber stamp on Trump-related matters.
Two more emergency petitions from the administration could produce rulings as soon as this week. One involves Trump's executive order on mail ballots. The other concerns his effort to build a ballroom at the White House after an appeals panel demanded congressional approval.
Monday's order makes the $5 million verdict final and unchallengeable in any court. For Trump, the practical consequence arrived last month when he paid out the judgment. The legal consequence arrived Monday when the Court confirmed it will not revisit the question.
The initial June denial had already signaled the Court's unwillingness to intervene. The rehearing petition was always a long shot, such petitions rarely succeed under any circumstances, and Trump's lawyers were asking the Court to reverse itself based on arguments the justices had already considered.
The $83.3 million defamation judgment is a different matter. Trump's legal team intends to press a presidential immunity argument that could raise questions the Court has not yet addressed in the Carroll context. Whether the justices agree to hear that appeal will likely be the next major development, though no action is expected before October.
Carroll filed two separate civil defamation lawsuits against Trump over his statements denying the sexual assault. The $5 million case, now closed, centered on a jury finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and then defamed her in 2022 by denying it. The $83.3 million case involved additional defamation claims.
The Carroll litigation has consumed years and millions of dollars. Whatever one thinks of the underlying claims, and Trump has never wavered in denying them, the legal process has now run its full course on the smaller judgment. The larger one still hangs in the balance, and the immunity argument Trump plans to raise could have implications well beyond this case. For now, the Court has spoken clearly: on the $5 million verdict, the answer is no, twice.
