The Supreme Court rejected President Trump's rehearing request in the E. Jean Carroll case, finalizing the $5 million verdict and closing his final appeal option.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's request for a rehearing in the E. Jean Carroll case, closing the final legal avenue in the $5 million civil verdict and finalizing the judgment against him.
The court's order came as part of its Monday order list, with no explanation and no noted dissents. It marks the second time the justices have declined to take up the case, following their June 29 decision to reject Trump's initial appeal of the 2023 jury verdict.
Rehearing petitions are granted only in the rarest of circumstances, and the denial means the $5 million award -- plus interest, for a total of roughly $5.63 million -- now stands with no further appeals available to the president.
The case stems from a lawsuit Carroll filed in 2022 in federal court in New York. She alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at a Manhattan department store, and that he defamed her in 2022 when he denied the claims on social media, calling them a hoax.
A jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, awarding $5 million in damages. The jury did not find that Trump raped Carroll, as she had claimed. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict, rejecting Trump's arguments that the trial was unfair.
Trump's legal team had argued that evidence presented at trial, including testimony from other women who made similar allegations, should not have been admitted. Carroll's attorneys responded that the case against Trump was strong enough that the outcome would not have changed regardless.
The Supreme Court first declined to hear Trump's appeal in June. After that denial, Carroll collected nearly $5.63 million from Trump -- the original $5 million verdict plus post-judgment interest -- through a court-controlled account in July.
Trump then asked the court to reconsider its June decision, an unusual procedural move that the justices almost never grant. Monday's order list put that request to rest, meaning Trump has no remaining options to challenge this particular verdict.
The decision also frees Carroll to use the funds without the money remaining tied up in the appeals process.
Monday's ruling does not touch the larger legal fight between the two. The Supreme Court is still weighing Trump's appeal of a separate $83.3 million verdict in a different Carroll defamation case, which stems from statements he made in 2019 while in office.
In that case, a Manhattan jury in 2024 awarded Carroll $83.3 million after finding Trump defamed her when he denied her allegations during his first term. Trump's attorneys have raised presidential immunity arguments in that appeal, pointing to the Supreme Court's landmark 2024 ruling that former presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts.
The justices have not yet decided whether to hear that appeal.
With the $5 million case fully resolved, Carroll's legal team declared the matter closed, with her attorney saying the ruling ends Trump's efforts to avoid accountability in that suit.
Attention now shifts to the $83.3 million appeal, which could test how the Supreme Court's presidential immunity doctrine applies to civil defamation claims tied to official conduct. A decision on whether the court will take up that case could come in the months ahead.
For Trump, the practical effect of Monday's order is limited: the money was already paid out in July. But the ruling eliminates any chance of recovering it and formally closes one of the two civil judgments against him.
The Supreme Court rejected President Trump's rehearing request in the E. Jean Carroll case, finalizing the $5 million verdict and closing his final appeal option.
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