For a second time, the US Supreme Court has declined President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn a federal civil jury verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E Jean Carroll. In June, the top court had already denied a prior attempt by Trump to review the civil case.
The president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and argued that the judge who oversaw the civil trial improperly allowed evidence to be presented that affected the jury’s perceptions of him.
In July, he paid Carroll more than $5m (£3.6m) in damages over her civil claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, and then branded the incident a hoax on social media.
“We are pleased that the United States Supreme Court has declined again to hear this case,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement following the decision.
“As a result, the jury’s unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E. Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court,” she added.
The court’s decision was posted as part of an order list on Monday, but offered no explanation for why the justices declined to rehear the case.
Legal experts said that Trump’s request to reconsider its previous June rejection was an unusual long-shot legal manoeuver, as the court rarely grants similar requests.
Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 82, sued Trump for attacking her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
The defamation stemmed from a 2022 post on Truth Social in which he denied the claims and said Carroll was “not my type”.
Trump has yet to comment on the court’s latest decision to not rehear the case.
In a lengthy Truth Social post following the earlier decision in June, Trump vowed to continue battling what he termed the “weaponisation and lawfare case” and the “ridiculous” claim of defamation.
“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,” he added.
In the initial petition to the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers argued that Carroll’s lawyers should not have let jurors see now infamous Access Hollywood footage from 2005 in which he used crude language as he discussed groping and kissing women.
Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to overturn a separate federal civil defamation verdict awarding Carroll $83.3m.
His lawyers have argued that Trump cannot be sued for comments he made while he was president.
The top court has not made a decision in that case.
By BBC News
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