US top court again rejects Trump push to toss out E. Jean Carroll verdict

The US Supreme Court on Monday again rebuffed President Donald Trump’s push to throw out a jury’s US$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 Republican president’s lawyers had asked the justices to reconsider their refusal to hear his appeal.

It is unusual – although not unheard of – for the court to grant such requests. Trump paid the judgment shortly after the court declined to take up his appeal in June.

Trump and the Justice Department are also asking the High Court to toss out a second Carroll verdict totalling US$83 million. They argue he was immune from being sued over comments he made about her in 2019, when he was president. The court has not yet acted on that appeal.

Carroll is a long-time advice columnist and former TV talk show host. She testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly 1990s encounter into a violent attack in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury retailer across the street from Trump Tower in Manhattan. The jury found Trump liable for defaming Carroll when he denied her allegation in 2022.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing.