Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, June 10, 2026 Non-AI Real World News

At some point in the 1990s, she is unable to recall the exact date or even year, E. Jean Carroll alleges she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in a dressing room at New York City’s Bergdorf Goodman department store.

There were no eyewitnesses. There was no physical evidence. There was no security camera footage.

But when it comes to New York City “justice,” it’s all about getting the right (or in most cases, the Left) jury.

In civil court, Carroll’s legal team constructed a narrative that relied heavily on the Trump Access Hollywood tape and testimony from friends Carroll said she confided in shortly after the alleged incident.

Two New York juries bought the narrative.

Could Carroll’s case withstand the U.S. Supreme Court’s scrutiny?

Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump is now being examined by U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Andrew S. Boutros, who is specifically looking at the payment of Carroll’s attorneys by mega-Democrat donor Reid Hoffman. Hoffman’s activist nonprofit, American Future Republic, is being investigated by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, according to press reports.

Trump is waiting to see whether the U.S. Supreme Court will hear his appeal.

“Carroll could not come up with a year, but then settled on 1995-1996, court filings show. Her story matches a plotline in an episode of ‘Law & Order,’ ” Rowan Scarborough noted in a June 9 analysis for The Washington Times.

“The 2023 trial setting: an arch-liberal Manhattan jury. U.S. District Court trial judge was Lewis A. Kaplan, appointed by Democrat Bill Clinton and now a senior judge (meaning he is part-time). He denied many of Trump’s evidence motions. The jury sided with Carroll.”

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s appeal in an opinion released in December 2024, a month after he was elected president a second time.

The three judges were Denny Chin, appointed by President Obama; Susan Carney, also an Obama appointee; and Myrna Perez, appointed by Joe Biden. Perez spent 16 years at the anti-Trump Brennan Center before the 2021 appointment.

“Biden said in November 2022 that he was using all his powers to keep Trump from running again for president,” Scarborough noted.

The rejected appeal was filed by Todd Blanche and an associate. Blanche is now acting attorney general. Trump named him attorney general pending Senate confirmation.

“The story Blanche tells through his appeals brief is of a biased Judge Kaplan, who rejected multiple defense requests to admit evidence that would show Carroll was a liar,” Scarborough wrote.

Blanche wrote in the filing: “The court routinely, if not exclusively, resolved questions regarding inferences sought by Plaintiff in her favor. [Carroll] manufactured a sexual assault that she alleged took place decades prior with no physical evidence to support her claim, and her testimony, alone, was incredible and inconsistent with reality or anything a reasonable juror could accept as true.”

By not supplying a semi-specific date, Carroll ruled out the possibility that Trump could defend himself by saying he was not in town that day or that week.

“Plaintiff barely offered a rough estimate of the date of her politically motivated allegations, knowing full well that the lack of specificity would make her claims nearly impossible to specifically refute,” Blanche said in the court filing.

Scarborough added other points of note:

• Carroll’s lawsuit was personally urged by two Trump haters: George Conway, a former Lincoln Project operative, and billionaire donor Hoffman, who paid her hefty legal bills. “The involvement of Conway and Hoffman was concrete evidence demonstrating that Plaintiff and others had manufactured their claims for political reasons,” Blanche wrote. Yet Judge Kaplan precluded the Trump team from ever mentioning Hoffman. Blanche alluded to Conway in his opening statement to the jury, but then Judge Kaplan ruled that he could not bring up the anti-Trump activist when he cross-examined Carroll.

• At a 2022 deposition, Carroll testified under oath that no one was paying her legal bills. “That was a lie,” Blanche said, but Judge Kaplan blocked Blanche from bringing it up to make the point that she had no credibility. “Telling lies while bearing the burden of establishing a falsehood should have been devastating to the case, and President Trump was wrongly prevented from demonstrating that to the jury,” Blanche’s appeal states.

• Carroll said publicly that she had a sample of Trump’s DNA from the supposed attack, but she lied. Yet Judge Kaplan approved her motion to block any DNA testimony or argument.

• Natasha Stoynoff, a former People magazine journalist, testified that Trump forcibly kissed her in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago home. Before the trial, Carroll interviewed Stoynoff and made a transcript. Blanche said she coached the witness and tried to persuade Stoynoff to say Trump “grinded” on her. Stoynoff said she did not recall that, and Carroll told her to stop and “think about it.” Blanche asked to submit excerpts from the transcript as evidence. Judge Kaplan said no.

• Carroll never filed a police report because, Blanche said, “she knew that making false claims to the police or other public authorities could expose her to criminal penalties.” Judge Kaplan ordered Blanche not to question Carroll about the lack of a report.

• Blanche called a Kaplan decision “fanciful, untrue and a bridge too far” when the judge said Trump’s vulgar description of seducing women (“Access Hollywood” tape) could be a reference to Carroll.

The remaining issues: Will the Supreme Court take up the Trump request to overturn the verdict? Will Senate Democrats interrogate Blanche on Trump and Carroll?

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