The US Supreme Court has let stand a civil judgment requiring President Donald Trump to pay $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation, closing the final avenue of appeal in a case that has shadowed his return to the White House. The justices, without recorded dissent or explanation, declined to review a 2023 jury finding that Trump assaulted Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and later defamed her by calling her account a hoax. The decision makes the award final, though a separate $83.3 million defamation judgment against Trump remains under appeal. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the ruling “affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict” and ends Trump’s “quest to avoid accountability.” Trump, posting on Truth Social, called the case “fake” and a “weaponisation” of the courts, vowing to “continue the fight.”

On the same day, the court’s conservative majority delivered Trump a structural victory by ruling 6–3 that the president may dismiss commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) without cause, overturning a 1935 precedent that had shielded independent agency officials from at-will removal. The case arose from Trump’s firing of Democratic appointee Rebecca Slaughter. Writing for the majority, the court held that subordinates exercising executive power are subject to removal by the president, even in agencies Congress designed as independent. Trump described the decision as “the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years.” The three liberal justices dissented, warning that the ruling erodes traditional checks on the executive. Legal observers in Washington note the judgment could affect dozens of regulatory bodies, from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the National Labor Relations Board.

In two further rulings, the court constrained presidential action. It upheld a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted if received up to five business days after an election, rejecting a Republican-led challenge that sought to restrict late-arriving postal votes. Trump, who has long attacked mail-in voting, called the outcome a “tremendous loss” and renewed demands for federal legislation requiring photo identification and proof of citizenship to vote. Separately, the court blocked, on procedural grounds, Trump’s attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, preserving the central bank’s independence for now. Trump said he would “take appropriate action immediately” against Cook, whom he accused without evidence of wrongdoing.

The mixed rulings illustrate the complex relationship between the Trump administration and a Supreme Court reshaped by his first-term appointments. While the Carroll decision closes one chapter of personal legal exposure, the FTC ruling marks a durable expansion of presidential authority that will outlast any single term. The president still awaits a verdict on his effort to end birthright citizenship, and his legal team has signalled it will ask the high court to review the $83.3 million Carroll defamation award. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether Carroll lied under oath during her civil suits, according to US media reports, adding a new dimension to the long-running legal conflict.