Supreme Court Decision - E. Jean Carroll's Nightmare Comes True
The Supreme Court Is Taking a Second Look at the Carroll Case — and the DOJ Perjury Probe Makes It Impossible to Ignore
Trump’s Carroll Case Returns to Spotlight as Supreme Court Redistributes Rehearing Bid
WASHINGTON, D.C. — August 5, 2026
President Donald Trump’s legal fight with writer E. Jean Carroll is drawing renewed attention after the Supreme Court redistributed his petition for rehearing in the civil case that produced a $5 million verdict against him.
The move does not mean the justices have agreed to hear the case. The court denied Trump’s original petition on June 29, then accepted a rehearing petition that was distributed on July 23, according to the Supreme Court docket.
Still, the development has given Trump’s allies a new opening to argue that the case deserves another look.
Funding Questions Resurface
The legal fight is also unfolding alongside a Justice Department investigation into outside funding connected to Carroll’s lawsuits. CBS News, Reuters and The Washington Post have reported that investigators are examining a nonprofit tied to LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman that helped pay some of Carroll’s legal expenses.
Carroll testified in a 2022 deposition that no outside funder was paying her legal bills. It later became public that American Future Republic, a Hoffman-backed nonprofit, had covered some costs.
The investigation has not resulted in charges against Carroll, Hoffman or the nonprofit. Carroll’s attorneys have previously said the outside funding did not affect the merits of the case.
Trump Challenges Trial Evidence
Trump’s Supreme Court argument focuses heavily on evidence admitted at trial. His lawyers contend jurors should not have heard testimony from other women who accused Trump of misconduct, or the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, because those materials risked turning the trial into a broader judgment of character rather than a narrow decision about Carroll’s specific claim.
Carroll accused Trump of sexually abusing her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation and said he did not know Carroll.
A New York jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, awarding Carroll $5 million. A separate jury later awarded her $83.3 million in a defamation case tied to Trump’s comments while he was president. Trump and the Justice Department are separately asking the Supreme Court to review that larger judgment.
A Case Far From Over
The Second Circuit upheld the $5 million verdict, and lower courts have rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn Carroll’s wins. But the Supreme Court’s handling of the rehearing request, combined with the DOJ probe into litigation funding, has kept the case alive politically and legally.
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For Trump, the issue is whether jurors were exposed to unfairly prejudicial evidence. For Carroll, the verdicts remain a major legal victory after years of public denial from Trump.
The Supreme Court has not signaled how it will act next. But the case has once again moved from the background of Trump’s legal docket to the center of a broader fight over evidence, political funding and the limits of civil liability.
