President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a civil verdict that found he sexually abused and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll.
The case, which has drawn national attention, raises questions about the limits of presidential accountability and the evidentiary standards used in politically charged civil trials, Newsweek reported.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and former television host, accused Trump of assaulting her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1996 and defaming her when he denied the allegation decades later.
A Manhattan jury in 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump was legally responsible for the alleged abuse and his public denials in 2022. An appeals court upheld the verdict in December 2024, prompting Trump’s legal team to seek intervention from the nation’s highest court.
Trump’s attorneys, led by St. Louis-based lawyer Justin D. Smith, described Carroll’s claims as a “politically motivated hoax,” according to the Associated Press.
“President Trump has clearly and consistently denied that this supposed incident ever occurred,” Smith and co-counsel wrote, the AP reported. “No physical or DNA evidence corroborates Carroll’s story. There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation.”
Civil rights attorney Areva Martin posted on X: “E. Jean Carroll did what millions of survivors are told is ‘impossible’—she took on one of the most powerful men in the world and won. That victory stands, no matter how many appeals he files.”
The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether to take up the case. If it declines to hear the appeal, the verdict and financial penalties against Trump will remain in place.
Carroll said in Septeber that she believes President Donald Trump might have persuaded at least one juror to avoid finding him liable for battery and defamation if he had testified in the first civil trial she brought against him.
Carroll sued Trump for rape and defamation, alleging he assaulted her in a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation—but not rape. During a joint Substack livestream with former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, Carroll expressed her view that the jury’s composition could have favored Trump had he taken the stand, the Daily Caller reported.
“Honestly, without pulling any punches — me to you, Joyce … This is the first trial. Trump was out on that golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, saying, ‘Oh, I got to go back because this woman I’ve never met.’ And [attorney Joe] Tacopina talked him into not coming,” Carroll said.
“If he had come to court, of course [lawyer] Robbie Kaplan would have cross-examined him for about seven hours, and he probably would not have survived that,” she added.
“But Trump … convinced half the nation to vote for him for president. They tried to impeach him twice and yet he came back. He was running in first place for president when Tacopina talked him out of it. I think if he had come back and gone on the stand, I think he could have convinced one juror,” she continued.
“One juror. And I think he could have hung the jury. There were several people on our jury from upstate New York, which is Trump country. Remember, this was not a Manhattan jury. This was an upstate, upper-county — Orange County, by the way is Trump,” she said.
According to Spectrum News 1, Donald Trump won Orange County by more than 8% against former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
“So we did not have a liberal, avocado-toast-eatin’ jury. We had an upstate, Trump-favoring jury … I think if he had come back and sat through the eight hours of Robbie Kaplan’s cross-examination — if he had lived through that — I think he could have convinced one juror,” Carroll added. “And I think he could have hung it.”
