President Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court to review the $5 million civil case that found he sexually abused and defamed magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
According to CNN, last year, a federal appeals court affirmed the jury’s verdict and $5 million judgment against Trump, ruling the trial judge did not make errors that would warrant a new trial. In June, Trump lost an effort to have the appeal reviewed by the full bench of judges.
Trump has claimed Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the civil trial, made numerous errors by allowing the jury to hear testimony from two women who alleged Trump sexually assaulted them years ago.
His lawyers also said the judge should not have let the jurors see the “Access Hollywood tape,” which captured Trump in 2005 on a hot mic saying he gropes and kisses women.
Carroll sued Trump alleging he sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s and defamed her when in 2019 he denied the assault, said she wasn’t his type, and claimed she made it up to boost sales of a book.
“There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation,” Trump told the Supreme Court in the appeal filed Monday viewed by CNN. “Instead, Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, who she politically opposes, until after he became the 45th president, when she could maximize political injury to him and profit for herself.”
The appeal has not yet been formally docketed at the Supreme Court.
