Trump Demands $5.6M Payout from E. Jean Carroll

Donald Trump is not done fighting E. Jean Carroll.

Just weeks after the president finally paid more than $5 million to the New York writer following a high-profile civil judgment over sexual abuse and defamation claims, Trump’s legal team is now demanding the money be returned.

In a new emergency filing, Trump’s attorneys asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to step in and block Carroll from keeping the $5.6 million payout, setting up yet another legal showdown in a case that has followed him for years.

Carroll’s lawyers, however, are blasting the request and accusing Trump of using delay tactics after his earlier efforts to stop the payment failed.

The latest filing marks another explosive turn in one of the most bitter legal battles surrounding the president, who has long denied Carroll’s allegations and has continued fighting the judgment through the courts.

Trump’s legal team filed for an emergency injunction that would effectively force Carroll to give the money back. But Carroll’s attorneys say the request should go nowhere, calling it “procedurally improper” and “substantively meritless.”

They also accused Trump of trying to invent new defenses every time a previous attempt to delay the case failed.

“Rather than accept the reality that he had lost, Defendant has engaged in a series of maneuvers trying desperately to forestall payment,” Carroll’s lawyers argued in court papers filed Monday, July 21.

According to the filing, Trump had already made repeated efforts to delay the payout, including what Carroll’s side described as his seventh emergency request for a stay in the related cases between the two.

Those efforts collapsed on July 8, when the appeals court denied his request and allowed the district court to disburse the judgment.

“That should have been the end of this case,” Carroll’s attorneys wrote.

Trump, 80, has spent years battling Carroll in court after she accused him of sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation, insisted Carroll was not telling the truth, and claimed she was trying to sell books and gain publicity.

Carroll first made the allegation publicly in her memoir, What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal. She later sued Trump for defamation after he denied the claim and accused her of lying.

A federal civil jury eventually found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered him to pay damages. Trump appealed the judgment and repeatedly asked higher courts, including the Supreme Court, to intervene.

But the Supreme Court declined to take up the case, clearing the way for Carroll to receive the money.

Earlier this month, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sharply rejected Trump’s latest attempt to block the payout, saying the president had been “stalling this case for years.” Kaplan also noted that the Supreme Court, including three justices appointed by Trump himself, had declined to review the matter.

The judge said it was time for Trump to “do equity” and pay the judgment.

Carroll’s team celebrated the payment after years of legal fighting.

“Three years ago, a unanimous nine-person jury found President Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E. Jean Carroll,” her lawyers said at the time. “Today, we are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict.”

But Trump’s latest move shows the president is not ready to let the case fade quietly.

For his supporters, the ongoing legal war is likely to fuel familiar complaints that Trump has been relentlessly targeted by political enemies, hostile courts, and liberal activists determined to drain him financially and damage him publicly.

For Carroll’s side, the case is about enforcing a jury verdict and stopping Trump from dragging out payment after losing in court.

And the stakes may not end with the $5.6 million judgment.

Carroll also won a massive $83.3 million award in a separate 2024 defamation case, which Trump is still appealing. That case centered on additional comments he made about her after the first legal battle was already underway.

Carroll’s lawyers have also suggested they would be willing to sue Trump again if they believe he defames her in the future.

After the January verdict, Carroll and her legal team appeared on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow, where they signaled they were “more than willing” to bring another lawsuit if another case arose.

During closing arguments in the second defamation case, one of Carroll’s attorneys said most people stop making defamatory statements after being held liable.

“He continued to defame Ms. Carroll even as this trial was ongoing,” the lawyer said.

Now, with Trump trying to claw back the $5.6 million payment and Carroll still pursuing the larger $83.3 million award, the courtroom war between the president and the writer appears far from over.

What began as an explosive accusation from decades ago has turned into a years-long legal and political battle — one that still threatens to cost Trump millions more.