NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court won’t reconsider its ruling upholding a $5 million civil judgment against President Donald Trump in a civil lawsuit alleging he sexually abused a writer in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.
In an 8-2 vote Friday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s petition for the full appellate court to rehear arguments in his challenge to the jury’s finding that he sexually abused advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and defamed her with comments he made in October 2022.
Carroll testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack after they playfully entered the store’s dressing room.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the verdict in December, rejecting Trump’s claims that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s decisions spoiled the trial, including allowing two other Trump sexual abuse accusers to testify.
The women said Trump committed similar acts against them in the 1970s and in 2005. Trump denied all three women’s allegations.
In an opinion Friday, four judges voting to reject rehearing wrote: “Simply re-litigating a case is not an appropriate use” of the process.
“In those rare instances in which a case warrants our collective consideration, it is almost always because it involves a question of exceptional importance,” or a conflict between precedent and the appellate panel’s opinion, Judges Myrna Pérez, Eunice C. Lee, Beth Robinson and Sarah A.L. Merriam wrote.
All four were appointed by President Joe Biden, Trump’s one-time Democratic rival.
The two dissenting judges, Trump appointees, Steven J. Menashi and Michael H. Park, wrote that the trial “consisted of a series of indefensible evidentiary rulings.”
“The result was a jury verdict based on impermissible character evidence and few reliable facts,” they wrote. “No one can have any confidence that the jury would have returned the same verdict if the normal rules of evidence had been applied.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement: “E. Jean Carroll is very pleased with today’s decision.”
“Although President Trump continues to try every possible maneuver to challenge the findings of two separate juries, those efforts have failed. He remains liable for sexual assault and defamation,” said Kaplan, who is not related to the judge.
Trump skipped the trial after repeatedly denying the attack ever happened. He briefly testified at a follow-up defamation trial last year that resulted in an $83.3 million award. The second trial resulted from comments then-President Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first made the accusations publicly in a memoir.
Kaplan presided over both trials and instructed the second jury to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually abused Carroll.
Arguments in that appeal are set for June 24.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event to sign a bill blocking California's rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, June 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The U.S.-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Islamic State group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria's national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
Associated Press journalist Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Sandbag barriers used as fighting positions by Kurdish fighters, left inside a destroyed mosque in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Burned vehicles at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
People flee the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
A Syrian military police convoy enters the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Burned vehicles and ammunitions left at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
