Supreme Court Again Rejects Trump's Appeal in E. Jean Carroll Case

The Supreme Court declined, for the second time, to rehear President Donald Trump's appeal of a jury verdict awarding writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million in her sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against him. This decision, reported on August 17-18, 2026, by the Associated Press, BBC News, CBS News, and NBC News, leaves the original verdict intact. Trump has already paid Carroll the more than $5 million in damages ordered by the jury, according to BBC News and NBC News. The case stems from a jury's earlier finding that Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll and later defaming her when he denied her allegations. Trump had sought Supreme Court review after lower courts upheld the verdict, but the justices turned away the request without providing detailed reasoning, as is customary in such orders. This marks the second time the high court has rejected his bid to overturn the judgment, according to CBS News and NBC News. Separately, in an unrelated legal matter reported around the same period, a federal judge blocked a third attempt by Trump to transfer his New York hush money criminal case from state court to federal court, according to PBS NewsHour. The two legal matters—the Carroll civil case and the hush money criminal case—are distinct proceedings involving different courts, different underlying conduct, and different legal questions, though both represent setbacks for Trump in ongoing litigation. No further appeals process was specified for either case in available reporting.