The Supreme Court has rejected President Trump’s latest request to challenge his $5 million sexual abuse and defamation judgment.
Published August 17, 2026
For the second time, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected President Donald Trump’s appeal of a 2023 civil lawsuit stemming from his alleged sexual abuse of author E. Jean Carroll in 1996.
The court’s list of August orders released Monday denied President Trump’s request to reconsider a previous ruling in June that denied his appeal of a 2023 ruling that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation against a former magazine columnist.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“We are pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court has once again declined to hear this case,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said in a statement. “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.”
The court’s order provides no explanation, as is often the case when judges deny requests for a retrial during a recess. The order denied a total of 33 requests.
After the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s appeal in June, Carroll collected the $5 million judgment, plus interest. The final damages awarded were approximately $5.8 million.
Carroll has won two separate defamation lawsuits against Trump.
President Trump has been in a lawsuit with Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, since 2019, when she published excerpts from a memoir in which she claims Trump raped her in a dressing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1996.
President Trump has denied her rape claims, calling her a “shit job” and saying she’s “not my type.” A jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in the case in 2024. Trump is also appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court, arguing that presidential immunity protects statements made while president.
The case, which resulted in a $5 million judgment, concerns comments made by President Trump in 2022, who called Carroll’s claims a “hoax” and “the work of a con man” in a social media post.
