Court denies Trump bid to claw back $5M verdict

What happened

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump’s second request to throw out a jury’s $5 million civil judgment that he assaulted and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump paid Carroll the $5 million plus interest last month, a “few days after the court initially turned away” his appeal, The New York Times said. The court on Monday “formally declined” his “long-shot request to the justices that they reconsider.” There was no stated reasoning and no noted dissents.

Who said what

Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the American people “demand an immediate end to all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll hoaxes.” Trump, they added, will “keep winning against liberal lawfare.” 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,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said after the ruling.

What next?

Trump’s appeal of a separate $83 million judgment for Carroll is “pending at the Supreme Court,” said CNN. The “justices are on summer recess,” the Times said, and “not expected to consider whether to take up that case until late September at the earliest.”

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