President Donald Trump has hit another roadblock in his attempt to escape a multimillion-dollar judgment, with the Supreme Court rejecting on August 17, 2026, his petition for reconsideration in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case.
The justices issued a brief order without explanation or recorded dissent, bringing Trump’s legal challenges to the $5 million verdict to a definitive end. The ruling marks the second time the high court has refused to intervene, having initially declined the case on June 29.
Two Separate Legal Battles
Carroll, an advice columnist, made her accusations public in her 2019 book. She claimed Trump assaulted her at Bergdorf Goodman, a high-end Manhattan department store, during an incident in 1996 where he allegedly pinned her to a dressing room wall and raped her.
Trump rejected her account, telling an interviewer Carroll was “not my type” and insisting the two had never met, despite existing photographs of them together.
Carroll launched two lawsuits against the president. Her first complaint, filed in 2019, focused on defamation. Three years later in 2022, she brought a second action alleging both battery and defamation, taking advantage of New York’s Adult Survivors Act. The statute opened a temporary window for survivors to pursue claims of sexual abuse beyond normal statute-of-limitations deadlines.
Long-Shot Appeal Fails
Requests for rehearings succeed only in exceptional situations, making Trump’s petition an uphill climb from the start. After the court refused his initial appeal in June, his attorneys made a second attempt to persuade the justices to revisit their decision.
The August 17 order dashed those hopes. The single-sentence denial offered no reasoning and listed no objections from any justice, following the customary format for such rejections.
A jury had found Trump liable for both sexual abuse and defamation against E. Jean Carroll, awarding her $5 million in damages. That judgment now remains in force. Trump paid it in July, when U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the release of about $5.6 million, covering the $5 million award plus three years of accrued interest.
Second Defamation Case Still Pending
Though this chapter has closed, another remains active. A different jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages in a 2024 defamation trial. On July 28, 2026, Trump and the Justice Department filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn that award, claiming presidential immunity protects remarks he made while serving in the White House. The court has not yet ruled on that request.
For Carroll, whose 2019 memoir sparked national debate, the denial represents the culmination of years spent pursuing accountability through the courts. The jury’s conclusions about what happened in that Bergdorf Goodman dressing room will stand unaltered.
The Supreme Court’s twin refusals, delivered just weeks apart, left no ambiguity about the justices’ unwillingness to revisit the matter. With the August order, the $5 million liability finding became final, exhausting Trump’s options to challenge it further.
