A New York federal appeals court rejected President Trump’s challenge to relitigate the verdict in writer E. Jean Carroll’s successful defamation suit against him.
In 2024, prior to the presidential election, a jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages after she argued he defamed her with statements he made in refuting her allegations of him sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the early-1990s. The president has repeatedly denied the allegations and has “tried unsuccessfully to substitute the United States as a defendant and to raise a claim of presidential immunity,” per ABC News.
A separate jury in an earlier trial awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after holding Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse. The 2nd Circuit previously rejected each of Trump’s appellate efforts in that case.
On Wednesday, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the president had raised his arguments too late.
“The fact of the matter is that no other defendant would be permitted to move to substitute the United States in his place, fifteen months after trial and the entry of judgment against him,” Judge Denny Chin wrote. “The Court appropriately declined to convene en banc to revisit this issue.”
Roberta Kaplan, attorney for E. Jean Carroll, celebrated the decision.
“We are pleased that the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has denied President Trump’s petition for an en banc hearing in connection with the verdict from the second jury trial,” Kaplan said in a statement.
“E. Jean Carroll is eager for this case, originally filed in 2019, to be over so that she can finally obtain justice,” Kaplan added.
According to USA Today, the president may take his appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court following Wednesday’s decision.
A spokesperson for the White House said in a statement on Wednesday that the “American People stand with President Trump in demanding an immediate end to the unlawful, radical weaponization of our justice system, and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts,” adding that Caroll’s allegations are “Hoaxes” and “false claims.”