Writer and author had testified, and won, at trial that the president had sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s

Donald Trump asked the US supreme court on Monday to throw out a jury’s finding in a civil lawsuit that he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.

Trump’s lawyers argued in a lengthy filing with the high court that allegations leading to the $5m verdict were “propped up” by a “series of indefensible evidentiary rulings” that allowed Carroll’s lawyers to present “highly inflammatory propensity evidence” against him.

Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and former TV talk show host, testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury retailer across the street from Trump Tower.

The jury also found Trump liable for defaming Carroll when he made comments in October 2022 denying her allegation.