The Supreme Court did not consider Donald Trump’s appeal at its private conference on Thursday, extending the wait in a fight over the $5 million jury verdict he was ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll. The petition had been fully briefed since late January, but the justices did not reach it when they met behind closed doors.
Trump is asking the court to review the verdict entered against him in Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation case, which began in federal court in New York in 2022. Carroll contended that Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996 in a dressing room at a Manhattan department store and later defamed her in a 2022 social media post calling her allegations a “Hoax.” A jury sided with Carroll and awarded her $5 million, and a federal appeals court upheld the judgment.
The delay matters because Trump has been pressing the high court to step into one of the most closely watched civil cases tied to him, and the court has now rescheduled the petition 11 times. It first distributed the case for consideration at its Feb. 20 conference on Jan. 28, then pushed it back again one day before that conference. The latest postponement leaves the justices free to continue holding the matter without saying whether they will hear it.
Trump came to the Supreme Court in November 2025 and argued that Carroll’s lawyers should not have been allowed to introduce testimony from other women who alleged that he assaulted them. He also argued that they should not have been allowed to play the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, which became a central piece of the trial record. Carroll urged the court to deny review.
The case sits inside a broader legal fight that has already produced a separate appellate ruling involving Carroll. In that matter, Trump has indicated that he plans to ask the Supreme Court to review another decision by the same federal appeals court and has also said he is seeking to have the U.S. government take his place in the lawsuit because he was president when he made the statements at issue. That parallel dispute may be part of why the court has not moved on the $5 million appeal yet. For now, Trump’s request remains unresolved, and the justices have given no sign of when they will decide whether Carroll’s verdict gets a hearing or stays intact.
E Jean Carroll Award Delay: Appeals Court Pauses Trump Payment
