U.S. Supreme Court Police direct visitors from behind a security fence in front of the court building covered with construction scaffolding on the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term in Washington, DC, October 6, 2025.
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President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a civil verdict that ordered author E. Jean Carroll to pay $5 million in damages for sexually assaulting her during an encounter at a New York department store in the 1990s and defaming her decades later.
President Trump’s request on Monday came nearly 11 months after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a May 2023 verdict handed down by a civil jury in Manhattan federal court.
The petition to the Supreme Court says that Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the trial, issued “a series of indefensible evidentiary rulings,” including “unreasonable admission of highly inflammatory proclivity evidence against President Trump.”
The evidence included testimony from two other women who allege that President Trump committed sexual misconduct against them at different times.
The petition also alleges that Kaplan erred by allowing Carroll’s lawyers to play the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about groping women to jurors without prior consent.
There is no automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court. It is unclear when the high court will decide whether to accept Trump’s appeal.
On September 6, 2024 in Manhattan, New York, author John Sauer (not pictured) watches arguments by author Jean Carroll and Republican presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump, who is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a $5 million jury verdict that found author E. Gene Carroll liable for sexual assault and defamation, after she accused Trump of raping her nearly 30 years ago. In this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg Reuter
Carroll first went public with her claims in a 2019 New York magazine article that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
She sued him for defaming her with comments he made, even though he flatly denied the allegations after the article was published.
Carroll later filed another lawsuit in late 2022, again alleging rape and defamation when Trump commented on her allegations.
This second case was the subject of a trial that concluded in May 2023. The jury in that case did not find Trump responsible for the rape, but found him responsible for the sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll.
It is this ruling that President Trump asked the Supreme Court to overturn in a new petition.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the swearing-in ceremony of U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gore at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 10, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
“Ms. Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, a political opponent of hers, until after he became the 45th president, when she could maximize political damage to Trump and benefit herself,” the petition states.
“Notably, Carol’s claims are clearly a story that echoes the plot of an episode of ‘Law & Order,’ one of her favorite television shows,” the petition reads.
“The American people stand with President Trump in calling for an immediate end to all witch hunts, including the Democratic-funded farce of the Carroll hoax,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement about the petition.
“President Trump will remain focused on his mission to make America great again and will continue to win against liberal legislation,” the spokesperson said.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declined to comment on the petition.
The first defamation suit filed by Carroll against Trump went to trial after the second suit.
In January 2024, a jury in Manhattan federal court found Trump liable for defaming Carroll for comments he made as president in 2019 when he denied her rape claims.
That jury ordered him to pay $83.3 in damages.
Mr. Trump appealed the verdict.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that appeal in September.
“As the district court recognized, this conduct supports a significant punitive damages award; it involved malice and deception, caused serious psychological injury, and continued for at least five years,” the three-judge appellate court panel said in its decision rejecting Trump’s appeal.
“The record in this case supports the district court’s finding that the ‘reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was exceptionally high and perhaps unprecedented,” the committee said.
Mr. Trump filed a petition asking the 2nd Circuit to reconsider the appeal before a panel of all active judges in the circuit.
