Trump Lawyers Promise $5.8M Payout to E. Jean Carroll if Supreme Court Denies Rehearing

Attorneys for Donald Trump are promising a nearly $5.8 million payout to E. Jean Carroll if the Supreme Court denies yet another attempt to throw out a case finding the president liable for sexual abuse.

On July 4, a federal judge denied the president’s efforts to stall payments to Carroll, who was awarded a $5 million judgment in 2023 after a federal jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.

That sum is being held in a court-monitored escrow account that has grown with interest over the last three years. That balance is now $6.4 million, according to the president’s legal team.

But in a late-night filing on Tuesday, Trump's lawyers said Carroll should wait until the ​Supreme Court “fully” decides whether to re-hear the president’s attempt to overturn the verdict, otherwise he faces an “unrecoverable loss” of millions of dollars that will cause him "irreparable harm.”

The Supreme Court has already rejected the president’s appeal, and a docket entry on Tuesday says the justices have “not accepted” his latest filing, throwing the future of his case at the nation’s high court in doubt.

“President Trump has presented a serious petition for rehearing. Plaintiff treats Supreme Court rehearing as though it were imaginary. It is not,” his attorneys wrote Tuesday.

“If the Supreme Court denies rehearing, which it should not do, Plaintiff can be paid then with any interest to which she is entitled,” they added.

Delaying any payments to Carroll until the Supreme Court “fully decides” Trump’s petition for a rehearing “completely protects” while “avoiding irreparable harm to President Trump,” according to his attorneys.

“Plaintiff loses nothing that cannot be compensated by interest; President Trump faces the real risk of losing funds that will likely never be recovered,” they added.

The seven-year legal battle follows a defamation lawsuit from Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist who accused Trump of assaulting her inside a Manhattan department story in the mid-1990s.

A federal jury unanimously ultimately awarded her $5 million after finding him liable for sexual abuse and then defaming her with his denials.

A separate jury in 2024 ordered the president to pay Carroll another $83 million in additional defamation damages. A federal appeals court rejected Trump’s appeal and the president is separately asking the Supreme Court to throw out that second verdict with the help of his own Department of Justice.

Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll's claims, which he has labeled a “hoax” and “con job” to boost sales for her memoir. After the Supreme Court rejected his petition last month, he called the case “fake” and repeated his claim that he “never met” Carroll — statements at the center of defamation lawsuits against him.

He plans to “continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength,” he wrote on Truth Social June 30.

“This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for, and should never be allowed to happen to another President, or Candidate to be!” he added.

After the Supreme Court denied Trump’s petition for the justices to revisit the $5 million verdict, the president asked the lower court to hold off on paying Carroll until he asked the Supreme Court to reconsider.

“But this is the end of the line,” Carroll’s attorneys wrote in court documents June 30.

On July 3, Carroll’s attorneys said they assume Trump is merely trying to “buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying” Carroll.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is trying to step into Trump’s case to prevent Carroll from receiving another $83 million from the president. Trump took the extraordinary step of trying to replace himself as a defendant with the U.S. government as he fights for “immunity” from having to pay her.

A brief court filing signed by top Justice Department officials earlier this year claims there is “good cause” to pause the case and let the administration argue Trump’s immunity claims on his behalf.