Trump begs SCOTUS for one last shot as he attempts to claw back $5.6 million in sex abuse case

By BREANNE DEPPISCH, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 17:25, 24 July 2026 | Updated: 17:25, 24 July 2026 Donald Trump wants the Supreme Court to undo a verdict he has already paid for, asking justices to revisit the $5.6 million sex abuse judgment now sitting in E. Jean Carroll's account. Their long-shot request comes roughly two weeks after justices declined Trump's request to review the award a lower court granted to Carroll, triggering the release of the $5 million, plus interest, in early July.  But Trump's eleventh-hour bid to claw back the funds could see new traction, after the Supreme Court agreed this week to distribute Trump's rehearing request to all nine justices - a procedural step that clears the way for the high court to potentially act on the matter as early as August, when it issues its next order list. At issue is a lawsuit Carroll filed against Trump in 2022, accusing the president of sexually assaulting her at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and then subsequently defaming her after she went public with her accusations.  Lawyers for Carroll have argued that Trump already tried and failed to make his case before a bevy of courts, including the Supreme Court, which declined in June to hear Trump's appeal of the judgement. Lawyers for Trump then took the rare step of filing the petition for rehearing, or asking the justices to take a second look at their earlier decision. It's unclear whether the high court would grant the request, and the last time the high court agreed to grant one was in 2018 - indicating the magnitude of the possible action. But Trump's lawyers plans to pull on a different legal thread in their request for rehearing - a recent Supreme Court precedent that could complicate things for the justices. The writer E. Jean Carroll leaves Manhattan Federal Court in 2024 after a jury decided in her favor in a defamation case against Trump President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at a press conference in 2025  E. Jean Carroll arrives for a Time Magazine gala in 2024 celebrating its list of the 100 Most Influential People in the world In this courtroom sketch, attorney Alina Habba points to her client, Donald Trump, as she delivers her closing arguments to the jury in a 2024 defamation suit by the writer, E. Jean Carroll  Trump greets his supporters as he departs for his second civil trial brought by Carroll  Then-Trump lawyer Alina Habba blasts the outcome of the E. Jean Carroll defamation case  Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll leaves Manhattan Federal Court for her civil defamation trial Lawyers for Trump told the high court that its petition for rehearing will 'present important questions concerning Presidential immunity for statements President Trump made in 2019, while serving as President.' That suggests Trump’s lawyers plan to make a fairly technical argument that connects the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision in the 2024 case, Trump v. United States, to the Carroll case. The high court held in 2024 that a sitting president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for ‘core constitutional powers’ carried out while in office, and has at least ‘presumptive immunity’ for other official acts. Though the case in question involved criminal charges, Trump's lawyers have argued that some of its reasoning should also apply in civil cases as well. What’s next remains to be seen. Barring extraordinary intervention from the high court, however, the judgement against Trump remains in effect.