The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear President Donald Trump's appeal of the $5 million jury verdict in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse and defamation case, leaving the 2023 ruling intact and drawing a sharp response from the president on Truth Social. No justice issued a written dissent, and the court offered no explanation for its decision, standard practice when the high court turns away a petition, but a result that nonetheless closes one legal avenue for Trump in a case he has called politically manufactured from the start.
Trump fired back within hours, posting on Truth Social Monday morning that he would not stop contesting the case.
"I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength."
The decision marks the end of Trump's effort to overturn the original Carroll verdict, though a separate, and far larger, $83.3 million defamation judgment from a second trial remains under appeal in the lower courts.
A Manhattan federal jury in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in 1996 and for defaming her in 2022. The jury deliberated for roughly three hours before awarding Carroll $5 million in damages, as National Review reported.
Trump's legal team challenged the verdict on evidentiary grounds. His attorneys argued the trial judge broke federal evidence rules by allowing testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct decades ago, testimony they called "highly inflammatory." The defense also objected to the admission of the 2005 Access Hollywood recording, the Washington Examiner noted, contending it prejudiced the jury.
None of those arguments persuaded at least four justices, the minimum required to grant a petition for review. The court's brief, unsigned order gave no reasoning.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already upheld the $5 million ruling in December 2024, leaving the Supreme Court as Trump's last recourse on that verdict. That door is now shut.
Central to Trump's public objection is the mechanism that made the lawsuit possible in the first place. New York enacted the Adult Survivors Act in 2022, creating a one-year window for alleged victims of sexual assault to file civil claims that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations. Governor Kathy Hochul signed the legislation, which temporarily lifted the time barrier for cases stretching back decades.
Trump has consistently argued the law was crafted with him in mind. On Monday he put it bluntly:
"New York State created a Law, for an instant speck of time, going back many decades, in order to wrongfully 'nab' me. It was tailormade, and this Injustice cannot be allowed to stand!"
Whether or not the Adult Survivors Act was designed with any single defendant in mind, the timing is hard to ignore. The law opened its window. Carroll filed. The window closed. And Trump was left facing civil liability for conduct allegedly dating to the mid-1990s, conduct he has flatly denied.
The Supreme Court has weighed in on Trump-related matters repeatedly in recent terms, sometimes siding with the administration and sometimes not. The court blocked Trump's removal of a Fed board member in a 5-4 ruling earlier this year, while in other cases it has upheld executive authority.
Monday's order addressed only the first Carroll verdict. A second, far larger judgment looms. In January 2024, a separate civil jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defamation tied to his social media commentary about her and the case. That award dwarfs the original $5 million verdict.
Trump appealed the $83.3 million judgment. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that appeal in September, but the case has not yet reached the Supreme Court. AP News reported that Trump still plans to appeal the larger defamation verdict, meaning the legal battle is far from over.
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, framed Monday's decision as the final word on accountability. "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.
Trump sees it differently. His attorneys had argued in a January filing that the litigation itself harms the country. The New York Post reported that Trump's legal team wrote: "It is deeply damaging to the fabric of our republic for President Trump, in the midst of a historic presidency, to have to take his focus away from his singular and unique duties as chief executive."
That argument, that a sitting president should not be dragged through civil litigation rooted in decades-old allegations, carries weight regardless of party. The Supreme Court evidently did not find it sufficient to grant review, but the underlying tension between civil lawsuits and presidential duties is not going away.
The Carroll case did not arise in a vacuum. It emerged alongside a wave of civil and criminal proceedings targeting Trump during and after his first term, proceedings his supporters view as coordinated political attacks and his opponents describe as overdue accountability. Trump himself has framed the Carroll matter in those terms from the beginning.
"This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for, and should never be allowed to happen to another President, or Candidate to be!"
That framing resonates with millions of voters who watched prosecutors and plaintiffs across multiple jurisdictions pursue Trump simultaneously during a presidential campaign. The question of whether the legal system has been weaponized, or is simply functioning as intended, remains one of the sharpest divides in American politics.
Courts have sometimes sided with Trump in related disputes. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Melania Trump by author Michael Wolff, calling it a "contorted" legal maneuver. And the Supreme Court itself has backed the Trump administration on green card enforcement in a 6-3 ruling that drew fierce dissent from Justice Jackson.
But the Carroll case stands apart. It rests on a state law that temporarily erased the statute of limitations, a law Trump contends was aimed squarely at him. It produced two massive civil judgments. And now the highest court in the land has declined to intervene on the first of them.
Trump's legal team had also raised the issue of prejudicial trial evidence. Allowing testimony from two additional women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct, allegations Trump denies, gave the jury material beyond Carroll's own claims. Whether that testimony met the evidentiary threshold is a question legal scholars can debate. Just The News reported that Trump's lawyers specifically argued the trial judge violated federal evidence rules by admitting that testimony.
The Supreme Court's refusal to weigh in leaves that evidentiary question unresolved at the highest level. It also leaves intact a verdict that Trump has contested at every stage.
Legal battles involving the Trump administration at the Supreme Court level have become a recurring feature of his presidency. Observers like Jonathan Turley have predicted the administration will face mixed results as various challenges work their way through the courts.
The $5 million verdict now stands. Trump must pay. The $83.3 million defamation judgment remains in play, and Trump has signaled he will fight it as far as the courts allow.
Carroll's side will treat Monday's order as vindication. Trump's side will treat it as further evidence that the legal system has been bent against him. Neither side is likely to change its mind.
The deeper issue is not whether Trump wins or loses a particular appeal. It is whether a state legislature can retroactively erase a statute of limitations, open a narrow window for claims decades old, and then close it again, and whether that process, whatever its stated purpose, can be used as a precision instrument against a political figure. Trump says it was. The courts, so far, have not agreed.
When the law itself becomes the weapon, the verdict is never really about one case.