The Supreme Court just let a $5 million lawfare verdict stand against a sitting president without a word of explanation — and if they can do it to him, they can do it to you.
The high court on Monday declined to hear Trump's appeal of the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse and defamation verdict. No explanation. No written dissent — not even from the three justices Trump himself appointed, as CNBC noted. That silence tells you everything about who the system protects, and who it doesn't.
A Manhattan federal jury slapped Trump with $5 million in May 2023 after finding him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. A second jury later piled on $83.3 million more in a separate defamation verdict Trump is still appealing at the lower court level. Trump's lawyers argued the trial judge improperly allowed testimony from two other women who claimed Trump sexually assaulted them decades ago — evidence his attorneys called "highly inflammatory," according to HuffPost. They warned the Court that forcing a sitting president to litigate "decades-old, false allegations" is "deeply damaging to the fabric of our republic," as the New York Post reported.
The Court's response: nothing.
On the very same day, the justices also turned away Alan Dershowitz's defamation suit against CNN. Dershowitz argued the network deliberately omitted key portions of his remarks during Trump's first impeachment trial to make his argument sound extreme. Two lower courts threw the case out because he couldn't meet the "actual malice" standard from the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision — the bar so high it makes public figures nearly untouchable in defamation claims. Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented, CBS News reported. Both have previously criticized Sullivan as a shield for media recklessness. Dershowitz warned the precedent "has morphed into an impregnable fortress that protects media irresponsibility while denying public figures any remedy for egregious misrepresentations."
So here's the landscape: the legal system gives media corporations near-absolute immunity to distort the words of public figures, while simultaneously allowing those same public figures to be hauled into court and hit with nine-figure verdicts based on decades-old allegations. The standard for destroying someone's reputation and finances is remarkably low. The standard for holding the press accountable is impossibly high.
Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan told the Court the case was "not worthy of review," per HuffPost. The justices agreed. Once a jury in a friendly jurisdiction renders a verdict, the Supreme Court has no appetite to second-guess it — evidentiary concerns be damned.
Trump has survived other legal fights. HuffPost notes a New York appeals court threw out a $500 million civil fraud penalty, and the Supreme Court granted him broad immunity from criminal prosecution in 2024. But the Carroll verdicts stand.
The question isn't whether you like Trump. The question is whether any American — president or not — can get a fair shake in a system where the highest court won't even look at the rules of the game.
