President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to review a $5 million civil judgment that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
A jury in 2023 awarded the judgment after it found Trump liable of sexual abuse, following Carroll's allegations that Trump assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in 1996 and later defamed her during his first term by referring to her allegations as a “hoax” and a “con job.”
“There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation,” Trump's lawyers wrote in their filing to the Supreme Court.
“Instead, Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, who she politically opposes, until after he became the 45th president, when she could maximize political injury to him and profit for herself,” the filing added.
It is unclear whether the high court will take up the civil case.
CNN first reported on Trump's court filing.
A spokesman for Trump's outside legal team said in a statement on the filing, “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes. President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declined to comment to NBC News last night.
A federal appeals court last year upheld the judgment after Trump argued that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the case, had erred in allowing testimony from two women — Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff — whose allegations of sexual abuse Trump has denied.
A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found in December last year that Kaplan had not “abused his discretion” by permitting their testimony.
Trump had also asked the appeals court for a rehearing of the case in June, which was denied.
Trump has repeatedly sought to have the judgments in Carroll's cases against him overturned. A separate appeal that Trump filed to overturn Carroll’s $83 million defamation judgment last year, in a case tied to his defamatory comments about her while president and after the $5 million verdict, failed in September.
