The Supreme Court on Monday slammed the door on President Donald Trump’s long-shot bid to revive his challenge to the $5 million verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll.
The justices rejected Trump’s request in a one-sentence order that offered no explanation and listed no dissents. The Supreme Court had already declined in June to hear his appeal.
Rehearing requests are almost never granted. Supreme Court rules require substantial, “intervening circumstances” before the justices will reconsider a denial.
A Manhattan jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, an advice columnist who accused him of attacking her inside a luxury store in the 1990s. Trump has denied her account.
His appeal argued that jurors should not have been allowed to hear from other women who have accused him of assault.
After the Supreme Court refused to take the case, Carroll received the $5 million judgment plus interest last month.
Trump’s attorneys pressed the justices to reconsider by pointing to a separate, unresolved appeal stemming from Carroll’s second courtroom victory.
That jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million over additional defamation claims. The appeal is moving more slowly and remains pending before the Supreme Court.
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Trump is asserting presidential immunity in that case. His legal team argued that a favorable ruling from the justices could also affect the $5 million case.
“That is a paradigmatic reason to at least hold a petition,” the president’s lawyers wrote.
“When a forthcoming or pending case may affect the proper disposition of another petition, the Court may hold the related petition, and later resolve it in light of the lead case,” they added.
Carroll took Trump to trial twice after coming forward during his first presidency with allegations that he sexually assaulted her at a Manhattan luxury store.
Trump’s team blasted the legal cases and vowed to keep fighting.
“The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the first jury verdict can no longer be challenged.
“We are pleased that the United States Supreme Court has declined again 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.”
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