Supreme Court turns down Trump’s last-ditch bid to overturn $5M verdict in E. Jean Carroll suit

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/17/turmp-carroll-supreme-court 

Supreme Court turns down Trump’s last-ditch bid to overturn $5M verdict in E. Jean Carroll suit

The president’s attempt to reverse a separate $83.3M award remains pending at the high court.

President Donald Trump speaks with journalists as he departs a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on June 24, 2026. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

By Josh Gerstein and Erica Orden

08/17/2026 10:44 AM EDT

The Supreme Court has rejected, once again, President Donald Trump’s bid to challenge a $5 million award writer E. Jean Carroll won against him in 2023 for sexual abuse and defamation.

The justices announced in June that they would not take up Trump’s petition seeking to overturn that verdict, stemming from a lawsuit in which Carroll alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. But Trump raged against the decision and filed a last-ditch motion last month asking them to revisit the issue.

In a routine order list issued Monday, the high court turned down Trump’s rehearing request without comment or any indication of dissent. Trump’s petition came during the justices’ summer break, so it appears they did not discuss the filing face-to-face before rejecting it.

In July, Carroll received more than $5.6 million from the sexual abuse and defamation case after a federal judge ordered the money she was awarded plus accumulated interest released to her despite Trump’s continued attempts to halt the payment.

Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to overturn a $83.3 million jury award resulting from a separate defamation lawsuit filed by Carroll. The justices are likely to indicate later this year whether they will hear arguments in that case.

Trump’s Supreme Court challenges to both verdicts argued in part that the verdicts were flawed because they relied on statements Trump made in 2019 about Carroll while he was serving as president and those statements should be considered immune from legal liability under the high court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents immunity for many acts they take while in office.