U.S. Supreme Court rejects Trump’s push to toss multimillion-dollar verdict in sexual abuse case

E. Jean Carroll exits the New York Federal Court after Donald Trump appeared in court, Sept. 6, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push by President Donald Trump to throw out a jury’s $5-million finding that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.

The high court declined to take up the case in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. There were no noted dissents. Trump also plans to appeal another $83.3 million verdict awarded to Carroll by a different jury after a second defamation trial, his lawyers have said.

The decision comes as the court hands down its biggest opinions, including a ruling that expands his firing power over the federal bureaucracy with the exception of the Federal Reserve.

Trump called the decision to pass on the Carroll case “surprising” in a social media post, and he said he would continue to fight the defamation claims. “This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for,” he wrote.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that allegations leading to the verdict were propped up by “highly inflammatory” evidentiary rulings, including those that allowed the testimony of two other women who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago. Trump has denied all three women’s allegations.

Trump’s attorneys argued the judge broke federal evidence rules in the case. They framed it as a distraction from Trump’s unique duties as president, though the verdict came before his return to the White House.

“This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand,” Attorney Justin D. Smith wrote in court documents. Trump, a Republican, has since nominated Smith to be an appeals court judge. His lawyers called the case “Liberal Lawfare” in a statement on Monday.

Carroll’s lawyers had urged the justices to pass on the case. They argued that the women’s testimony was relevant because the allegations were similar and that Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decisions were in line with others around the country. “This question is not worthy of review,” wrote attorney Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge.

Monday’s decision affirms the jury’s verdict will stand, she said in a statement Monday. “His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions,” she said.

Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and former TV talk show host, testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury retailer across the street from Trump Tower in Manhattan. The jury also found Trump liable for defaming Carroll when he denied her allegation in 2022.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

Trump has successfully fended off other hefty court judgments, including a New York civil fraud penalty of over $500 million thrown out by a New York appeals court. The Supreme Court also granted him broad immunity  from criminal prosecution in 2024, though it later narrowly rejected his bid to halt sentencing in his New York hush money case.

Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press

Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Michelle Price in Washington contributed to this report.