President Donald Trump’s lawyer submitted blatantly “false” information to the Supreme Court in an effort to smear and discredit author E. Jean Carroll, who a civil court found was sexually assaulted by the now-president in the 1990s, Mother Jones reported on Monday.
According to documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Trump’s lawyer, Justin D. Smith, submitted a petition to the Supreme Court that claims Carroll’s allegations "precisely" match the plotline of a 2012 episode of the television show “Law & Order: SVU.”
Trump’s legal team is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a $5 million judgment Trump was ordered to pay after being found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.
In the petition, Smith described the plotline from the episode in question to be about a “business mogul” who “fantasizes about raping a victim in a Bergdort Goodman dressing room ‘[w]hile she was trying on lingerie.’” First made in 2019, Carroll’s allegation against Trump is that he had sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman luxury department store in New York City, New York.
In actuality, the “Law & Order: SVU” episode in question, titled “Theatre Tricks,” differs greatly from the summary Smith provided to the Supreme Court.
“There is a small plotline about a sexual encounter in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room,” wrote Mother Jones reporter Katie Herchenroeder. “But the man involved is a prominent New York City judge, not, as Smith claimed, a ‘business mogul.’ And what happened in the dressing room, which is discussed but not shown in the episode, was pre-planned and by all accounts consented to.”
Furthermore, an individual with knowledge of the episode’s production told CNN in 2019 that the episode’s plotline bore “no correlation whatsoever” with the account provided by Trump allies seeking to discredit Carroll.
Knowingly making false statements to the federal government in certain circumstances is a federal offense and punishable with up to five years of imprisonment. However, proving false statements to the federal government were submitted knowingly is notoriously difficult to prove.
Smith’s submission of false information to the Supreme Court, even without evidence of intent, could prompt the Court to deny the petition to overturn Trump’s $5 million judgment as a violation of its rules mandating accurate filings.