Trump Ordered To Pay Up $5M Settlement To E. Jean Carroll

A woman in sunglasses and an orange jacket stands in front of a pink backdrop with event branding. Two men in suits stand in a room with American flags. — Source:

Now that President Donald Trump has pretty much exhausted every legal avenue his team of attorneys could think of to get him out of the civil judgment against him for the sexual assault of magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, a judge has ruled that it’s time for the president to pay up, regarding the $5 million he owes her for assaulting her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.

According to the New York Times, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Manhattan federal court cited the Supreme Court’s June 29 order, which denied Trump’s request for the court to review the case. Kaplan ruled that the decision officially cleared the way for funds Trump had already deposited with the court to be released to Carroll. NBC News reported that the money will be released from a court escrow account and will include the interest that has accrued since the judgment was awarded to Carroll in 2023.

From NBC:

The move came after Trump’s attorneys sought to delay the payment for what would have been at least several more months, asking the judge to give them more time before releasing the money while they ask the high court to reconsider its decision.

Asked about Kaplan’s order, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement, “The American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes.”

If Trump and his people are good at nothing else, it’s packing as many MAGA platitudes, talking points, and buzzphrases into a single statement as possible.

So, even after trying and failing numerous times to get the sexual assault verdict against him tossed — which included a shameless DOJ investigation that was launched against Carroll in a transparent attempt by the president to intimidate his victim — Trump’s attorneys tried to delay the release of the funds while they lobbed a last-ditch effort, urging the court to review the case once again.

Apparently, it’s not just the president who doesn’t understand that no means no; his legal team doesn’t seem to get it either.

Anyway, it’s worth the reminder that Trump also owes Carroll a whopping $83 million judgment as a result of her defamation case against him. Trump has also tried to get that judgment overturned, but a federal appeals court panel affirmed those damages last September, finding the judgment “reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts.”

In fact, Trump’s attorneys argued that another pending challenge to that decision is why the Supreme Court should reconsider its decision regarding the sexual assault case.

More from NBC:

They argue that the jury was improperly shown Trump’s statements blasting Carroll from when he was president in 2019, statements they contend in the other case were protected by presidential immunity and therefore should not have been shown to the jury.

They said they didn’t raise the issue earlier because the precedent they’re relying on — the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling which gave Trump some presidential immunity in his federal election interference case — came down too late for their appeal.

Carroll’s attorneys said in a court filing last week that Trump appeared to be trying “to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying Plaintiff.”

Look, considering that it was recently reported that Trump has gotten $2 billion richer off of his cryptocurrency venture since he’s been in office, maybe he should just take some of that fortune and quietly pay Carroll what he owes her, instead of drawing so much attention to the fact that voters elected an adjudicated rapist to the highest office in the nation.