President Donald Trump is still trying to delay paying E. Jean Carroll the $5 million she was awarded in 2023 after a civil jury found he had assaulted and then defamed her.
Despite losing every appeal he has pursued, all the way up to being denied a review before the Supreme Court, Trump is still using delay tactics to avoid settling the debt, lawyers for Carroll said.
On Friday his new lawyer filed a motion asking the court to overturn the expedited schedule for disbursement of the funds—the timetable for the court to give Carroll the money Trump was forced to put up as a guarantee when he was found liable for sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s, and then defaming her.
That $5 million, held by the court while the appeals process was underway, has grown to $5.8 million.
Carroll’s lawyers acted swiftly after the Supreme Court refused to take up Trump’s case on June 29, filing a motion seeking disbursement of the funds on June 30, and then a motion to expedite the disbursement on July 1.
Trump, who continues to deny that he raped Carroll, appears determined to draw the process out as long as possible.
In the motion filed on July 3, his lawyers asked for the expedited disbursement schedule to be returned to a “normal schedule” because of a change of counsel.
But Carroll’s counsel immediately hit back in a filing Friday afternoon, calling the request a delaying tactic.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan argued in the filing that Trump’s claim his new lead counsel needs time is disingenuous, given that the president has known for months that his old counsel would no longer be available, due to his own choices.
“President Trump nominated (and the Senate recently confirmed) his former counsel in this case, Justin Smith, as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit,” the filing says.
“But Mr. Smith was nominated (by Defendant) to the Court of Appeals more than five months ago, on February 18, 2026, and, as expected, he was confirmed to that position by the Senate on June 15, 2026.
“As a result, Defendant has had ample time to retain new counsel to substitute for Mr. Smith, and if he believed it was necessary to have new counsel come in given Mr. Smith’s departure, he should have been acting diligently to do that since at least February.”
She further alleged that Trump is attempting to delay the payment because of plans he has to seek further review of the verdict.
“We can only assume that Defendant is seeking, through the instant motion, to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying Plaintiff, presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing,” Kaplan wrote.
The filing also alleges that a “frivolous” complaint has been made against Kaplan to the bar association that is similar to the reported investigation the Justice Department recently began into Carroll.
“This latest development only further demonstrates the lengths to which Defendant and his allies are willing to go to avoid compliance with the law,” she argues.
The filing urges the court to stick with the expedited disbursement, allowing Carroll access to the money that a jury found was rightfully hers.
Trump was also found to have defamed Carroll in a separate trial, which ended with a verdict of $83.3 million in Carroll’s favor.
The Daily Beast reached out to lawyers for Carroll and Trump as well as the White House for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
Carroll first sued Trump in 2019 for defamation, and then again in 2022. The 2022 lawsuit went to trial first, resulting in the $5 million verdict.
The 2019 case went to trial second and resulted in the $83 million verdict against the president, who, with interest, owes Carroll more than $100 million in total.
The president is also appealing the 2019 verdict.
