US Supreme Court again declines to revisit Trump's $5 million Carroll defamation verdict

In 2023, a federal jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a department-store dressing room in the mid-1990s and for defaming her by calling her account a hoax. The jury awarded her $5 million in damages. A separate jury later ordered Trump to pay an additional $83.3 million for further defamatory remarks. Carroll was a long-time advice columnist for Elle magazine and wrote a 2019 memoir in which she first publicly accused Trump.

Background: the 2023 verdict

Trump has denied any wrongdoing. Throughout the litigation he has accused Carroll of fabricating the story and has dismissed the photograph of him and Carroll that surfaced during the trial as a stock image.

It is unusual, although not unheard of, for the Supreme Court to grant such requests to reconsider a case it has already declined. The court turned down Trump's first reconsideration request earlier this year without a recorded dissent, and Monday's action followed a similar pattern.

Why the court declined

The underlying lawsuit traced back to remarks Trump made in 2019 while serving as president. After the verdict, the Justice Department under Joe Biden declined to substitute the United States as a defendant in the case, which would have shifted any damages to the federal government. Trump's lawyers later revived the substitution argument, prompting the request that the justices rejected on Monday.

Legal analysts said the court's silence carried its own message. "By issuing a one-line denial without any noted dissent, the court is signaling that it sees no vehicle for revisiting the matter," said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor, in comments reported by the Associated Press.

The official-capacity argument

Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement that her client was grateful the court had declined to intervene. Kaplan said Carroll, now 82, had waited decades for her accusations to be heard in a courtroom and that Monday's order brought her a measure of closure.

The case has drawn unusual attention because it blended questions of personal accountability with arguments about presidential authority. Trump's lawyers argued that, because he was president when he denied Carroll's allegations, his comments were official acts and therefore shielded by the Supremacy Clause. The court did not address that constitutional question, instead letting the jury's verdict stand.

What comes next

Both sides could still pursue further legal options, including appeals on narrower procedural grounds. Trump, who has returned to the presidency after the 2024 election, also faces the separate $83.3 million defamation judgment, which his lawyers are also challenging in lower courts.

The Supreme Court's next term begins in October, and there is no indication the justices plan to revisit the Carroll matter before then.