BREAKING: E. Jean Carroll’s attorney is pushing back against President Trump’s latest legal filing, arguing that his request for additional time is simply another attempt to delay paying the $5.8 million judgment he owes following a civil defamation and sexual abuse verdict.
Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s final appeal in the case, Trump’s legal team filed a motion in federal court seeking more time to respond to Carroll’s request to enforce the judgment. The filing argued that newly retained counsel needed additional time to become familiar with the lengthy litigation before responding.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, wasted little time responding.
In a sharply worded filing submitted the same day, Kaplan urged the court to reject Trump’s request, arguing that there was no legitimate reason for further delay after years of litigation.
“Defendant’s assertion that he cannot respond to Plaintiff’s Motion on the timeline ordered by the Court appears to be little more than yet another play for time,” Kaplan wrote.
Kaplan argued that Trump’s latest request follows a pattern of delay throughout the litigation and contended that the court should not permit additional extensions now that the appeals process has effectively come to an end.
She went even further in her filing, suggesting that the motion serves only one purpose.
“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.”
The exchange comes after the Supreme Court declined to review Trump’s appeal, leaving intact the lower court rulings and clearing the way for Carroll to pursue collection of the judgment. With interest accrued since the verdict, the amount Trump owes has grown to approximately $5.8 million.
Legal observers were also quick to question the reasoning behind Trump’s request for more time.
Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff noted that Trump’s legal team has known for months that lead counsel would be departing the case and argued that the transition should not have come as a surprise. He also pointed out that Trump continues to be represented by co-counsel who has participated in the litigation from its earliest stages, raising questions about whether additional delays are warranted.
The dispute stems from a landmark civil trial in 2023, when a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her after she publicly accused him decades later. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. Trump has consistently denied Carroll’s allegations and has continued to challenge the verdict through the courts.
Since the jury’s decision, Trump has pursued multiple appeals seeking to overturn the judgment or secure a new trial. Those efforts have been unsuccessful. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the verdict, and the Supreme Court ultimately declined to take up the case, leaving the lower court’s rulings in place.
With the appeals process now exhausted, the legal battle has shifted from whether the judgment stands to how quickly it will be enforced. Carroll’s legal team argues there is no longer any legal basis for postponing payment and is urging the court to move forward without further delay.
Trump’s attorneys, meanwhile, maintain that the request for additional time is a routine procedural matter related to the transition between lawyers and not an effort to avoid complying with the judgment.
The court will now decide whether to grant Trump’s request for an extension or proceed on the existing schedule as Carroll seeks to collect the multimillion-dollar judgment.
