President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, accusing the agency of unlawfully leaking his confidential tax returns in a politically motivated violation of federal privacy laws.

A spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News ‘a rogue, politically motivated’ IRS employee disclosed private and confidential tax information involving Trump, his family and the Trump Organization to outlets, including The New York Times and ProPublica.

The suit claims the disclosures were illegal and harmed millions by violating federal privacy laws.

That contractor at the heart of the leak, Charles Littlejohn, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to a single felony count of unauthorized disclosure of tax return information and is serving a five-year prison sentence.

Littlejohn admitted to stealing and leaking Trump’s tax records to The New York Times and to disclosing confidential tax data involving wealthy individuals to ProPublica.

According to the lawsuit, Littlejohn testified in a 2024 deposition that the Trump materials he leaked included information on all of Trump’s business holdings.

As previously reported by Fox News Digital, Littlejohn refused to testify before Congress, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights while appealing his sentence.

According to a June 2025 Judiciary Committee press release, DOJ prosecutors said Littlejohn’s disclosures were ‘unprecedented in its scope and scale.’ 

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Senate Democrats and the White House reached a deal to fund the government, but lawmakers aren’t out of the woods yet in averting a partial shutdown. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and President Donald Trump labored over a deal from late night Wednesday until Thursday evening after the top Senate Democrat unleashed several funding demands and the White House accused Schumer of blocking a meeting with rank-and-file Democrats. 

‘The separation of the five bipartisan bills the Democrats asked for + the two-week DHS [continuing resolution] has been agreed to,’ Schumer said in a statement. 

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said that the ‘only thing that can slow our Country down is another long and damaging Government Shutdown.’ 

‘I am working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government, without delay,’ Trump said. ‘Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before).’ 

‘Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much-needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ Vote,’ he continued. 

The deal brokered between the two would see the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill stripped from the broader six-bill package. Schumer and Democrats have been adamant that if the bill were sidelined, they’d vote for the remaining five, which includes funding for the Pentagon. 

Their agreement also tees up a short-term funding extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR), for two weeks to keep the agency funded while lawmakers negotiate restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Trump and Schumer’s bipartisan truce comes after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Republicans barreled ahead with a test vote on the funding package that was ultimately torpedoed by Senate Democrats and a cohort of seven Republicans earlier in the day. 

Republicans again have the opportunity to bring the package back to the floor, but to speed up the process, they would need consent from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

And they are still working out the kinks on their own end through the hotline process, where the package is scrutinized by every Senate Republican before being given the go-ahead for a floor vote. 

Speedig up the process may prove tricky, given that several of the Republican defectors, including Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., were upset with earmarks baked into the bill. 

And Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wants an amendment vote on his provision to strip the bill of millions in ‘refugee welfare money‘ and signaled that he may slow the process down if he doesn’t. 

Many Senate Republicans recognize that stripping the DHS bill is not the best outcome but contended that it was better than not funding the government and entering into yet another shutdown.

‘That’s the only way we’re going to get through this without a long government shutdown,’ Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said. 

To his point, despite lawmakers reaching an agreement that will likely see the remaining bills passed and keep DHS funded for a month, the House will have to agree. They don’t return until next week, and fiscal hawks are already publicly panning the plan.

With the future of Congress and President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on the line in this midterm election, the Honest Elections Project is warning of critical loopholes in the voting system, including the expansion of noncitizen voting and foreign influence.

With many state legislatures convening their final sessions before the 2026 midterms, HEP believes they have ‘one last opportunity’ to pass the ‘critical reforms’ needed to close loopholes breaking down legitimacy and trust in the electoral process.

In a report shared first with Fox News Digital, HEP identified 14 key electoral integrity vulnerabilities it says must be remedied ahead of the midterms.

Among these vulnerabilities is hundreds of millions in foreign-linked money that have helped shape ballot measures in 26 states, according to HEP.

The report says that while foreign individuals are banned from donating to political candidates, bad actors have found a legal loophole by contributing both directly and indirectly to ballot measure campaigns that can include initiatives changing constitutions and election laws. The report refers to these campaigns as a ‘Trojan Horse for foreign influence,’ including from ‘hostile foreign powers like China and Russia.’

To combat this, HEP laid out model legislation called the Prohibiting Foreign Funding from Ballot Measures Act to bar direct and indirect foreign funding, including through intermediary nonprofits, of ballot initiatives. In addition to this, the legislation requires that donors and ballot committees affirm they are free of foreign money to qualify and imposes strict penalties for violations.

The report also warns of a ‘growing number’ of blue cities, including Washington, D.C., and New York that it says have been working to enfranchise noncitizens and illegal aliens. HEP said that most state constitutions grant voting rights to ‘any’ or ‘every’ citizen, open-ended language that it says allows ‘liberal activists [to] argue permits localities to authorize noncitizen and even illegal alien voting.’

According to HEP, this problem is further compounded by current federal law that allows dishonest individuals to simply check a box to claim they are citizens on the National Mail Voter Registration Form.

To push back on this, HEP urges states to amend their constitutions to explicitly permit only citizens to vote. The group said that such language was passed by wide margins in 15 states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Iowa, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

Additionally, HEP is urging states to pass the Documentary Proof of Citizenship Act, requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship to participate in state and local elections. The bill also makes it a criminal offense for noncitizens to apply to register to vote or for election officials to register a voter without proof of citizenship or to count illegal votes. This is an approach HEP believes is ‘consistent with Federal law and serves to protect the integrity of state-level voting processes.’

HEP lays out another five pieces of model legislation: The Interstate Voter Assistance Act, the Never Resided Act, the Procedural Election Audits Act, the Uniform Election Dates Act and a bill to prohibit government entities from using donations or in-kind goods or services from a private or non-governmental entity for election administration.

Addressing the issues, HEP Executive Director Jason Snead said, ‘Many states have made tremendous strides in making it easy to vote and hard to cheat in recent years, but there is still more work to be done.

‘State lawmakers have one last opportunity to shore up their election laws ahead of the extremely important 2026 midterms,’ Snead added. ‘Honest Elections Project is proud to provide a roadmap for lawmakers to continue promoting election integrity across the country.’

U.S. appeals courts have overturned or stayed lower court rulings blocking President Donald Trump’s policy priorities at a rate far higher than during the Biden administration, a disparity Trump allies point to as evidence of the president’s strong track record in higher courts.

The contrast was highlighted by Chad Mizelle, a former senior Justice Department official, who noted that district court rulings against the Trump administration are being reversed or paused on appeal far more frequently than similar rulings issued during President Joe Biden’s time in office — even when the relief is temporary.

‘Over 4 years of the Biden administration, 9 district court rulings against the administration were later overturned on appeal,’ Mizelle said in a post on X. ‘About 2.25 per year.’

Mizelle compared that average to Trump’s first year back in office in 2025, when he said that ’32 district judges issued 133 rulings against the Trump administration that were stayed or overturned on appeal,’ adding: ‘Simplified, district judges are now issuing rulings that ultimately fail on appeal at more than 50x the rate compared to the previous presidency.’

His post comes as senior Trump officials have blasted district court judges who have blocked or paused the president’s most sweeping policy initiatives in his first year back in office, arguing that what they call ‘activist judges’ have overstepped their bounds and are intruding on the president’s executive authority.

As court watchers have previously pointed out to Fox News Digital and other outlets, the post presents a somewhat incomplete picture of the legal landscape during Trump’s second term. While Trump’s appeals court wins indeed far outpace those of his predecessors, they were also issued in response to an unprecedented surge of executive orders and actions.

Trump spent much of his first year in office signing hundreds of executive orders aimed at enacting his biggest policy priorities, including slashing government spending, cracking down on illegal immigration and eliminating many diversity and equity initiatives enacted under the Biden administration. Those actions also triggered a torrent of lawsuits seeking to block or pause his policies from taking effect, teeing up a high-stakes showdown over how far Trump can push his Article II powers before the courts can or should intervene.

Many of the early lawsuits filed sought relief by way of temporary restraining orders and universal injunctions, which paused or blocked executive action temporarily to give the court time to hear the case on its merits.

Other lawsuits sought a longer-lasting form of relief via preliminary injunctions, which require plaintiffs to satisfy a higher legal burden in court.

The Supreme Court in June narrowed the ability of district court judges to issue so-called ‘universal injunctions’ blocking a president’s policy from taking effect nationwide. The high court’s 6-3 ruling allowed district courts to issue injunctions only in limited instances.

As of this writing, 597 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration’s actions, according to Just Security’s litigation tracker.

Few cases have been fully adjudicated by the lower courts. Rather, the temporary rulings are almost always appealed by the Trump administration to a higher appeals court for relief — often in the form of an emergency or temporary stay.

As Fox News Digital previously reported, the Trump administration has indeed seen a record number of Supreme Court victories in the last 12 months. 

That trend is overwhelmingly due to the so-called emergency or ‘shadow docket’ challenges, which allowed the administration to appeal cases to the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority for immediate intervention.

Mizelle concluded the post by touting Trump’s Supreme Court ‘win rate,’ which he said ‘is roughly 90%,’ though he appeared to be referring to the same practice. 

Though they are not intended to be permanent, the Supreme Court ‘shadow docket’ rulings have allowed the Trump administration to proceed with a wide range of its policies, including its ban on transgender service members in the military, its termination of millions of dollars in Education Department grants and DEI funding, among many other things.

Attorney General Pam Bondi touted similar numbers during a Cabinet meeting last month. ‘We have been sued 575 times,’ she said then. ‘More than every administration going back to Reagan combined.’ 

She also echoed similar numbers shared by Mizelle. ‘Twenty-four Supreme Court wins, President Trump,’ Bondi told the president in December. ‘A 92% success rate.’ 

A likely emerging deal in the Senate aimed at averting a prolonged government shutdown could face significant headwinds in the House of Representatives.

Senate Democrats are demanding that funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) be removed from a larger package of six spending bills needed to finish funding the government for fiscal year (FY) 2026. A growing number of senators on both sides appear to be warming to do so, while passing a short-term extension of current funding levels for DHS called a ‘continuing resolution’ (CR).

Any changes to the current legislation would need to pass the House again. With lawmakers there not expected back in Washington until Feb. 2, three days after the Jan. 30 funding deadline, a brief partial government shutdown is all but certain.

Meanwhile, a number of House Republicans are already balking at the prospect of funding DHS through a short-term CR.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus sent President Donald Trump a letter earlier this week signaling that its members would reject attempts to get DHS funding through the House again.

Caucus member Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital via text message on Thursday, ‘THE HOUSE DID OUR JOB BY PASSING THE REMAINING SIX APPROPRIATION BILLS TO THE SENATE AND THERE IS NO RATIONAL REASON TO REMOVE DHS FROM THE APPROVAL PROCESS.’

Norman accused Democrats of trying to ‘demonize’ and ‘bludgeon’ DHS, adding, ‘IF THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN, ‘DO IT’!!’

Two sources told Fox News Digital that Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are trying to bridge the divide between a two-week CR for DHS, which Democrats want, and Republicans’ preference for six weeks.

But House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News Digital, ‘The Democrats’ desire to keep millions of illegal aliens in the United States will not suddenly disappear in a week or a month with a Continuing Resolution. Delaying full year funding for the Department of Homeland Security any further is a bad idea.’

And a senior GOP aide close to House conservatives said a two-week CR ‘hands more leverage to Democrats to derail immigration enforcement’ and that ‘we’d be right back here again in two weeks with more crazy demands from the radical Left.’

It’s not just the House’s rightmost flank criticizing the emerging deal, however.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that a CR, though he did not specify length, ‘would be very unlikely to pass the House.’

Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., another appropriator and a member of the pragmatic Republican Main Street Caucus, said Thursday that spinning the DHS bill off from the larger package as a CR was the ‘wrong strategy.’

‘We’ve negotiated these bills in a bipartisan fashion. They should pass the [legislation] as packaged by the House. And again, we can negotiate changes that they feel are necessary if that’s their demand. But not funding,’ Bice said.

Democrats have been up in arms over Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, demanding stricter guardrails on Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of DHS, in any federal funding bill. The original DHS funding bill, which passed the House, included some of those wins for Democrats, like mandating body-worn cameras on ICE agents and enhanced training for crisis management and public engagement.

But Democrats balked at that bipartisan deal after federal officers in Minneapolis shooting and killing nurse Alex Pretti caused an uproar among progressives. He’s the second of two U.S. citizens killed by federal law enforcement during demonstrations in the Midwest city.

Bice pointed out that risking the fate of the DHS funding bill would risk more than just funding for ICE — which Republicans’ ‘big, beautiful bill’ injected billions of dollars into last summer — and affect other agencies in DHS’ purview.

‘They are threatening to potentially not fund [Transportation Security Administration] agents again, not fund our air traffic controllers again. These folks have already spent 43 days not getting paid under the last shutdown. Holding them hostage because you’re upset about how DHS is operating is not, is, is, it’s ridiculous in my opinion,’ Bice said.

Air traffic controllers are under the purview of the Department of Transportation, one of the five other bills being held up during Senate negotiations.

House Democrats, on the other hand, could be willing to back a short-term CR for DHS.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital on Thursday that such a bill would ‘have to be evaluated’ but said his caucus would reject anything that did not put DHS ‘on a path for dramatic, immediate, transformative change.’

Jeffries also told Fox News Digital that he’s been in ‘close communication’ with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he’s been negotiating with the White House.

‘The White House also knows that the only group of people who speak for House Democrats are House Democrats,’ he said.

The current circumstances put any compromise out of the Senate on shaky ground in the House. Even if the Senate did pass something before the Jan. 30 federal funding deadline, how long any shutdown goes on will heavily depend on how long it takes Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to corral House lawmakers on a vote.

And while the legislation itself could likely survive a House-wide vote, Johnson could run into trouble with a procedural mechanism called a ‘rule vote’ needed to allow for debate and final consideration of a given measure.

Rule votes traditionally fall along partisan lines, and Johnson wields just a razor-thin majority of House Republicans. Appropriators like Bice and Cole have not shown any willingness to vote against their own party on rule votes, but House Freedom Caucus members have done exactly that on multiple occasions in recent years in order to block legislation they did not deem conservative enough.

The other option would be to fast-track the bill via a process called suspension of the rules, though it would require raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds, meaning significant support would be needed from House Democrats.

A cohort of Senate Republicans broke ranks with their leadership on Thursday to help Senate Democrats tank a massive funding package, and most aren’t planning on changing their minds. 

Seven GOP lawmakers joined Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and all Senate Democrats to torpedo the six-bill funding package geared toward averting a partial government shutdown. 

The gang of seven have varying issues with the package, including billions in earmarks, lack of legislation to prevent future shutdowns and the fact that the White House and Republican leadership are leaning toward splitting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill from the broader funding bunch. 

Among the group was Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Rand Paul, R-Ky., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ted Budd, R-N.C., Ashley Moody, R-Fla., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.

Johnson told Fox News Digital, ‘There’s a bunch of reasons, [I] don’t even want to get into it,’ on why he voted no. When pressed, he said that billions in earmarks were a major problem and noted that the GOP conference had an agreement to not include any in funding bills.

‘Here we are in the majority,’ Johnson said, ‘and we’re loading it up.’ 

He was also unhappy with the DHS bill likely being stripped out from the package and angered over his legislation, the No Shutdown Fairness Act, not being included or even considered on the Senate floor.

‘I mean, we haven’t taken care of that yet,’ Johnson said. ‘Without addressing the root cause here, it’s like, you know, why do we continue to allow these shutdowns to even occur?’

‘I’m tired of it,’ he continued. 

Scott was similarly incensed over earmarks, as was Budd.

A spokesperson for Budd told Fox News Digital that the lawmaker ‘has expressed longstanding concerns with earmarks in the Labor-HHS title, including multiple earmarks for both abortion providers and facilities that perform gender transitions on children.’

While some stew over the current state of the funding package, Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans are going back and forth on the length of a possible short-term funding extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR), specifically for the DHS bill. 

Sources familiar with negotiations told Fox News Digital that Republicans are looking for a longer, six-week patch for the agency, while Democrats want a two-week CR. The hope is negotiations between Schumer and the White House land somewhere in between.

If a deal is struck, that means that the funding package would come back to the floor at some point on Thursday. From there, lawmakers could procedurally fast-track the process and wrap up late Thursday night, well ahead of the funding deadline.

But, that requires agreement from everybody, and the GOP rebels may not allow the process to move swiftly in order to strike deals on amendment votes.

Paul, who perennially votes against funding packages big and small, signaled he may slow down any momentum, unless he gets a vote on an amendment to carve out millions in ‘refugee welfare money.’ 

‘If we get at least a vote on that, we’ll agree to condense time,’ Paul said.

President Donald Trump announced that the commercial airspace over Venezuela would reopen after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an emergency notice earlier in January to block civil flight operations of U.S. aircraft in Venezuela airspace. 

The notice came as the U.S. conducted strikes in Venezuela and captured dictator Nicolás Maduro. 

The Trump administration has said that the U.S. would run Venezuela until a peaceful transition could occur and is currently working to restore diplomatic relations with Caracas, Venezuela. 

‘I just spoke to the president of Venezuela and informed her that we’re going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela,’ Trump said Thursday during a Cabinet meeting. ‘American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there and be safe. It’s under very strong control.’ 

Trump said that he’s instructed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the U.S. military to open the airspace over Venezuela by the end of Thursday. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. is attempting to revitalize diplomatic relations with Venezuela following Maduro’s ouster. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers Wednesday that the U.S. is planning to re-open its embassy in Venezuela. 

‘We have a team on the ground there assessing it, and we think very quickly we’ll be able to open a U.S. diplomatic presence on the ground,’ Rubio told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, as well as flights between the U.S. and Venezuela, have been shuttered since 2019.

Following the raid to seize Maduro, hundreds of U.S. flights to the Caribbean were canceled, including flights between the U.S. and Puerto Rico and Aruba.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to not open fire on Kyiv, Ukraine, for one week due to the freezing weather rocking the region. 

‘I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this,’ Trump said. ‘It’s extraordinary cold, record-setting cold. Over there too, they’re having the same conditions. It’s a big it’s a big pile of bad weather. The worst. But it was, it really they said, they’ve never experienced cold like that.’ 

The president held his first Cabinet meeting of 2026 Thursday, where he welcomed special envoy Steve Witkoff to the table to provide updates on his negotiations with Russia to end the war on Ukraine. 

Trump continued that he’s happy he made the call to Putin despite warnings to not ‘waste’ a call to the Russian leader. 

‘I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,’ Trump said. ‘And I have to tell you, I was very nice. A lot of people said, don’t waste that call. You’re not going to get that. And he did it. And we’re very happy that they did it.’

Trump added that the agreement was a ‘very good thing.’ 

Russian strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine, have hobbled the city’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks, with Reuters reporting Monday that more than 1,300 apartment buildings in Ukraine’s capital have been without heat in the chilling temperatures. The strikes also have left much of the population without electricity and running water. 

Witkoff said Thursday during the Cabinet meeting that negotiations have moved along productively and that the people of Ukraine are ‘hopeful and expecting that we’re going to deliver a peace deal sometime soon.’ 

Witkoff and fellow administration envoy Jared Kushner joined trilateral peace talks earlier in January with Ukraine and Russia as the nations inch toward a hopeful peace deal. 

‘We had five Russian generals last Sunday in Abu Dhabi with Jared and I and Dan Driscoll. We think we made a lot of progress,’ Witkoff said. ‘The talks will continue in about a week, but lots of good things happening. … We have a security protocol agreement that’s largely finished. A prosperity agreement that’s largely, largely finished.’ 

A monthly chart of the weather in Kyiv, Ukraine, shows it has been brutally cold similar to temperatures rocking many parts of the U.S., as winter storm Fern careened across much of the United States Saturday and Sunday. The month of January in Kyiv, Ukraine, shows the highest temperature reaching 34° Fahrenheit and the lowest hitting -5° Fahrenheit, according to weather data.

The war in Ukraine has raged since the Biden administration as Russia looks to take hold of the nation and expand its footprint in Europe. The war will notch its four-year anniversary Feb. 24. 

Trump campaigned in part on ending the war in Ukraine, arguing it never would have unfolded if he had been re-elected during the 2020 campaign cycle. 

The president has noted that the war in Ukraine has been more difficult to solve than he anticipated, while touting he has ended eight other wars since he was sworn back into the Oval Office just more than one year ago. 

Supreme Court justices are set to hold a private conference on Feb. 20 to consider a slate of petitions for review, including one from President Donald Trump. The president is requesting a review of the 2023 verdict against him in a civil lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll.

The justices could act on Trump’s petition as soon as Feb. 23, but they generally consider petitions at two or more conferences before granting them, meaning they might not announce a decision until March 2 or later, according to SCOTUS Blog.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, previously downplayed the likelihood the Supreme Court will intervene.

‘We do not believe that President Trump will be able to present any legal issues in the Carroll cases that merit review by the United States Supreme Court,’ Kaplan said, according to The Associated Press.

In the petition, Trump’s attorneys described Carroll’s allegations as ‘facially implausible’ and ‘politically motivated.’ They also argued the accusations were ‘propped up’ by a ‘series of indefensible evidentiary rulings’ that allowed Carroll’s attorneys to present certain evidence that the Trump team found objectionable. 

‘President Trump has clearly and consistently denied that this supposed incident ever occurred. No physical or DNA evidence corroborates Carroll’s story. There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation… Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, who she politically opposes, until after he became the 45th President, when she could maximize political injury to him and profit for herself,’ Trump’s attorneys wrote in the petition.

Trump’s attorneys also suggested that Carroll’s allegations mirror the plot of a ‘Law & Order’ episode, which they say is one of her favorite TV shows.

They also argued that lower courts should not have admitted testimony by Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who alleged that the then-real estate mogul assaulted them. Leeds claimed that her assault happened on an airplane in 1979, while Stoynoff said her attack occurred at Mar-a-Lago in 2005. The attorneys say both women’s allegations present credibility issues, citing inconsistencies. They also objected to the inclusion of the infamous 2005 ‘Access Hollywood’ tape in which Trump made lewd remarks, which became a flash point of the 2016 election.

Carroll, a journalist and advice columnist, sued Trump twice after she released a book in 2019 in which she claimed that he raped her in 1996 in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store across the street from Trump Tower. Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s claims and said the case was ‘a complete con job.’ He also said that Carroll was ‘not my type.’

‘I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social in October 2022.

Trump’s repeated criticisms of Carroll and denial of her claims led to the journalist’s defamation allegations.

In May 2023, a jury found Trump was not liable for rape but was liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Carroll was awarded a total of $5 million in damages.