Trump Clings to Power, Demands Supreme Court Rehearings Despite Overwhelming Legal Defeats
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Former President Donald Trump and his legal team have filed desperate petitions for the Supreme Court to revisit two recent decisions—one upholding a $5 million verdict for E. Jean Carroll, a survivor of his defamatory attacks, and another striking down his xenophobic birth-right citizenship order. The Court, known for rarely granting such requests, is unlikely to indulge Trump’s latest attempt to undermine justice.
President Donald Trump and his legal team, undeterred by repeated legal setbacks, have filed petitions asking the Supreme Court to rehear two recent rulings: a June 30 decision that invalidated his blatantly discriminatory executive order on birth-right citizenship, and a lower-court judgment upholding a $5 million verdict in a defamation suit by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who bravely stood up to Trump’s attacks. The petitions, filed within the 25-day window allowed by Court rules, reflect Trump’s ongoing efforts to evade accountability, even as legal scholars point out that the high court only grants such requests when new, material evidence emerges—a standard Trump has failed to meet.
The June 30 ruling, decided 6-3, affirmed that Trump’s executive order violated the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, with even Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, dissenting only on technicalities but agreeing it was barred by immigration law. The Supreme Court’s history shows it almost never grants rehearings, with the last such instance in 1965, and only once reversing its own decision after a rehearing nearly a decade earlier.
"It is extremely rare for the court to grant reconsideration," said Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell Law School. "When it does so, it is typically because some vital information was not before it originally. Simple attempts to re-litigate a decided issue invariably fail."
Despite this, Trump’s attorneys argue that the Court should not ignore the so-called "grave and irreparable consequences" of enforcing the Carroll judgment, referencing historical instances where the Court revisited denied appeals. However, a federal judge has already ordered the payment to proceed, and a federal appeals court denied Trump’s request for immediate relief while it reviews a longer pause request, signaling the courts’ unwillingness to be manipulated by Trump’s stalling tactics.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on Trump’s intent to seek a rehearing. Lawyers for Carroll, who has endured Trump’s attacks with resilience, also declined comment.