Appeals Court Denies
A federal appeals court on Friday turned away an attempt by President Donald Trump to have a lower court’s ruling in his $5 million sexual abuse case involving former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll overturned.
The decision, first reported on the X platform by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, stemmed from a divided Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in which all 11 judges were involved en banc
Carroll, now 81, alleged that Trump assaulted her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan around 1996, and later defamed her in an October 2022 Truth Social post by calling her accusation a hoax.
In May 2023, a jury found that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her by making false statements. However, the jury did not conclude that Trump had raped her, as she originally claimed.
In requesting reconsideration, Trump argued that the trial judge made a mistake by allowing jurors to view the 2005 Access Hollywood video, in which he boasted about his sexual behavior, along with what he described as a “pile-on” of prejudicial evidence involving allegations from two other women.
“Two of the Trump appointees, Judges Steven Menashi and Michael Park, on the bench dissent from the en banc decision, saying the judge shouldn’t have admitted ‘propensity’ evidence like the Access Hollywood tape,” Cheney reported on X.
One accuser, businesswoman Jessica Leeds, claimed Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, alleged he forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005. Trump has denied both allegations.
Trump, who turns 79 on Saturday, is also appealing an $83.3 million jury verdict issued in January 2024, which found he defamed Carroll and harmed her reputation in June 2019 when he first denied her allegation about the incident at Bergdorf Goodman.
In that appeal, Trump contends that the U.S. Supreme Court’s July decision granting him broad criminal immunity also shields him from civil liability in Carroll’s case.
In his 2019 and 2022 statements denying Carroll’s accusations, Trump claimed she was “not my type” and alleged she fabricated the story to promote her memoir.
Trump could also face a third lawsuit from Carroll over a post he made to his Truth Social account during the Memorial Day observance a year ago.
“Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for ‘DEFAMATION,’” Trump wrote.
“She didn’t know when the so-called event took place – sometime in the 1990’s – never filed a police report, didn’t have to produce the ‘dress’ that she threatened me with (it showed negative!), & sung my praises in the first half of her CNN Interview with Alison Cooper, but changed her tune in the second half – Gee, I wonder why (UNDER APPEAL!)? The Rape charge was dropped by a jury! Or Arthur Engoron, the N.Y. State Wacko Judge who fined me almost 500 Million Dollars (UNDER APPEAL) for DOING NOTHING WRONG, used a Statute that has never been used before, gave me NO JURY, Mar-a-Lago at $18,000,000 – Now for Merchan!” he added.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed to Newsweek that her client was considering yet another lawsuit.
“We have said several times since the last jury verdict in January that all options were on the table. And that remains true today. All options are on the table,” Kaplan said in a statement at the time.
Mom Of Trans Athlete Speaks Out After Volleyball Team Forfeited Match Against Her
The mom of a trans volleyball player called out California school officials after her daughter’s team lost a game before it even started. She said the school let people harass her child instead of protecting her.
Her daughter, AB Hernandez, plays for Jurupa Valley High School. She was supposed to face Riverside Poly High School on August 15, but the game didn’t happen.
Riverside Poly later put out a statement, saying, “We understand this is disappointing for our athletes, families and supporters, and we appreciate the community’s understanding.
“We remain committed to providing a safe, positive environment for all student-athletes throughout the season.”
Parents say the game was thrown because of Hernandez
Some parents told
Board member Amanda Vickers spoke to the outlet and said, “Tonight, the girls of Riverside Polly High School, they’re not going to end up like Payton McNabb.”
She was talking about a player who had permanent brain damage after being hit by a spike from a trans athlete back in 2022.
Families meet with the school board after the incident
After the game was canceled and Vickers’ comments made headlines, local parents showed up at a Riverside Unified School District board meeting on August 21.
Some stood by their kids for sitting the game out. Others spoke up against the district’s approach to gender and school sports, according to the New York Post.
The mom says her daughter is not to blame
AB’s mom, Nereyda, was at that meeting too. She told everyone her daughter was “not the problem.”
She also called out Vickers for her remarks to Fox News Digital, saying the board member had basically “entertained and welcomed harassment” toward her child.
“You are a board member. You have an oath to protect, to support all children, not just the ones that fit your ideas, your beliefs,” she told her.
Nereyda added, “My daughter is not the problem. The problem is coordinated external efforts often led by individuals that travel from district to district … to spread fear and put parents against each other using religion as a shield for discrimination. This has nothing to do with fairness in sports and everything to do with erasing transgender children.”
AB has been targeted before
This was not the first time AB had been singled out. Back in May, she was heckled by a group of about 30 adults at a track meet in Yorba Linda. Reports said even three school board members were in that crowd.
The yelling was so loud it caused a false start during one of the races.
AB spoke up about what happened, telling Capital and Main, “There’s nothing I can do about people’s actions, just focus on my own. I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person.”
Protests follow her at sporting events
According to the New York Post, AB has also dealt with protests at postseason meets. Female athletes and their families showed up to demonstrate against her competing.
Some wore “Save Girls Sports” shirts. Those shirts have even been compared to swastikas by school officials in a lawsuit.
Trump weighs in on California’s transgender policies
President Donald Trump also jumped into the conversation online.
On his Truth Social account, he posted, “Any California school district that doesn’t adhere to our Transgender policies, will not be funded. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” That message was part of his broader push against transgender rights.
In July, his administration sued the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation, saying the policy that lets trans athletes compete in girls’ sports went against federal anti-discrimination laws.
Trump pushes lawsuits and new directives
The lawsuit came even though Trump had already signed an order earlier in the year to cut federal funding from schools that let trans girls compete in female sports.
The directive said, “It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.
“It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
When he signed it, Trump declared, “the war on women’s sports is over.”
