Donald Trump knows how to work a clock. His legal team just pulled off another slow-walk miracle at the Supreme Court. For the fifteenth time, the high court quietly kicked his appeal against E. Jean Carroll down the road. No explanation. Just a vanishing act on the docket. The justices were supposed to look at it in February. They didn’t. It just keeps sliding.
This isn’t pocket change. We are talking about a $5 million jury verdict from a 2022 lawsuit. A New York jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. He wants that wiped out. Meanwhile, the interest keeps ticking. Add in his other loss to Carroll—the massive $83 million judgment from her 2019 suit—and the ex-president is on the hook for over $100 million. But as long as the high court sits on its hands, Trump doesn’t have to pay a dime of that initial five million.
Why the hold-up? The Supreme Court is a black box. They never explain these scheduling gymnastics. Maybe a justice is drafting a lengthy dissent. Maybe they are just lazy. Or maybe they are waiting for the second shoe to drop. Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown, points out how bizarre this is. Fifteen reschedules is almost unheard of. Only one other case this term has been kicked around that much—a police shooting case out of Ohio. Vladeck notes two options. Either the court is waiting for Trump’s other Carroll appeal to catch up, or they are giving him VIP treatment. If it’s the latter, it’s a stretch. The abuse happened decades before he ever touched the Oval Office.
Let’s look back. Carroll sued Trump twice. The second suit, filed under a New York law opening a window for old sexual abuse claims, actually went to trial first. That’s the one currently stuck in Supreme Court limbo. During that trial, District Judge Lewis Kaplan let the jury hear the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. You know the one. The “grab them” tape. Trump’s lawyers screamed foul. They claimed the judge poisoned the well by letting the jury hear that tape and testimony from two other accusers. The appeals court didn’t buy it. They upheld the verdict.
Trump’s lawyers are playing the martyr card. They told the Supreme Court that forcing a former—and potentially future—president to deal with “decades-old, false allegations” hurts the republic. It’s a classic distraction play. But then came a weird twist. The Justice Department recently opened a criminal probe into Carroll. The focus? Whether she lied under oath during the litigation. Trump’s team is already screaming “perjury” and “liberal lawfare.”
The chess game continues. Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to the Supreme Court on June 2. They plan to appeal the $83 million verdict within weeks. Their suggestion? Keep waiting. Let’s bundle both cases together. It is a brilliant stalling tactic. If the justices agree, the whole mess gets kicked into the autumn. Trump wins more time. In the game of high-stakes litigation, time is the only currency that matters.
