Supreme Court Closes the Door on Trump in Carroll Case: $5.6 Million Request Rejected, Decision on $83 Million Pending

President Donald Trump’s attempt to avoid paying $5.6 million to former magazine writer E. Jean Carroll was rejected Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices issued their decision without noting any dissent, handing Trump the latest defeat in his long-running legal battle with Carroll. In June, the Supreme Court dismissed the president’s appeal, and it has now also rejected his lawyers’ request to reconsider the case.

Under a lower court order, Trump has already paid the $5.6 million. In a court filing, Carroll’s legal representatives said the money would remain in an interest-bearing account until Trump’s request had been reviewed.

The legal dispute began in 2019, when Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump. She filed another lawsuit in 2022, this time for sexual abuse and defamation, after New York passed a law allowing victims of sexual abuse to seek civil damages even for incidents that had occurred years earlier.

Although it was filed later, the 2022 lawsuit went to trial first. The jury found Trump liable and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

The 2019 defamation lawsuit was then heard, resulting in a much larger financial judgment against Trump totaling $83 million. That separate case remains pending before the Supreme Court.

Carroll has said that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s. According to her, he later defamed her by claiming that she had fabricated the story to boost sales of her book.

Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations. He has also claimed that federal judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the civil trial, made several errors that influenced the jury’s verdict.

Among the objections raised by Trump’s lawyers was the admission of testimony from two women who alleged that the president had sexually assaulted them years earlier. The defense also objected to the use at trial of the well-known “Access Hollywood” recording, in which Trump could be heard making vulgar comments about women.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the $5 million judgment last year. It found that the trial judge had not made any errors that could justify holding a new trial.

In June 2025, Trump also failed in his attempt to bring the case before the full panel of Second Circuit judges. He then turned to the Supreme Court, but it rejected his appeal in June of this year.

Requests for reconsideration are rarely granted by the Supreme Court. With this latest rejection, Trump’s opportunity to reopen this part of his legal dispute with E. Jean Carroll has also come to an end, while the case involving the $83 million damages award remains unresolved.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team criticized the decision and said the president would continue fighting what the spokesperson described as a Democrat-funded “witch hunt” and “lawfare.”