The U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s request to overturn a $5 million US judgment in favor of E. Jean Carroll in a case where a jury held him accountable for sexually assaulting the former magazine columnist and then slandering her. The justices dismissed Trump’s appeal following a lower court’s affirmation of the 2023 ruling and dismissal of Trump’s claims that the trial was unfair due to the judge allowing jurors to hear about his alleged prior sexual misconduct.
Trump has been engaged in a legal battle with Carroll, a former advice columnist for “Elle” magazine, since she disclosed in 2019 that he had allegedly assaulted her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. Trump refuted Carroll’s allegations, asserting she lied about them in 2019 while he was in office and again in 2022 when he was no longer president.
The Justice Department, under Trump, initiated a criminal probe targeting Carroll, investigating whether she committed perjury in her testimony related to the two civil cases she won against Trump. The lawsuit resulting in the $5 million US verdict centered on Trump’s 2022 statements calling Carroll’s claim a “hoax” and a “con job” in a social media post.
Trump stated in the post, “This woman is not my type!” Carroll sued Trump in federal court in Manhattan, where jurors in 2023 determined that Trump had sexually mistreated Carroll and defamed her, awarding $5 million US in damages. They did not find evidence that Trump raped Carroll, as she had alleged.
In 2024, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld the verdict, citing evidence such as Trump boasting about his sexual prowess on an “Access Hollywood” video during the 2016 presidential campaign, which aligned with Carroll’s claims of a consistent pattern of behavior. Trump’s legal team contended that the trial judge improperly allowed testimony on several old, unverified, and unrelated allegations, breaching federal evidence rules.
According to Trump’s lawyers, Carroll falsely accused him more than two decades later due to political differences, seeking to inflict maximum political damage and personal gain after he assumed the presidency. In a separate lawsuit Carroll won in 2025, the 2nd Circuit declined to overturn an $83.3 million US defamation verdict from 2024, where Trump denied her claims in 2019 and alleged she fabricated them to promote her book.