The Supreme Court's rejection of President Donald Trump's request for a rehearing to overturn writer E. Jean Carroll's $5 million civil judgment against him cannot undo a string of court rulings that have favored the president, an analyst argued.

The justices declined to revisit the judgment, which stems from a May 2023 federal jury verdict in Manhattan — a trial presided over by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan — finding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. Carroll, a longtime journalist and former Elle magazine advice columnist, accused Trump of assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s; her suit became possible under New York's Adult Survivors Act, a 2022 state law that opened a one-year window for sexual abuse claims that would otherwise have been time-barred. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations. In a separate defamation case before the same judge, stemming from statements he made denying her allegations while president, a second jury awarded Carroll an additional $83.3 million in January 2024.

In an analysis published Wednesday by Salon's Alex Galbraith, the writer argued that Chief Justice John Roberts and other justices handed Trump a rare loss — and a "smoke screen."

Galbraith compared the Supreme Court's dynamic to Harlem Globetrotters performances, "getting caught up in the magic circle that surrounds Trump's actions as president."

"The Court is free to play-act at being a check on Trump's power, so long as the majority of Americans consider it a legitimate body," Galbraith wrote. "Keeping that ruse going is crucial for the aims of the wider right-wing project. And to do that, the conservative majority can't just rubber stamp every last thing this president does."

This week's decision, which followed a federal appeals court's decision upholding the verdict, leaves the $5 million judgment in place. But it will not erase the other victories the high court has handed Trump, whose appointees Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett account for three of the court's six conservative justices. Among them, the court ruled in 2024 in Trump v. United States that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution for official acts, and in Trump v. Anderson it barred states from removing Trump from their ballots under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

"By handing Trump a highly publicized and embarrassing loss on an issue that doesn't hamper Republicans' agenda, the conservative justices are continuing their smoke screen by reinforcing the Court's legitimacy as an impartial body at a time when they're more captured by partisan politics than ever," Galbraith wrote. "Occasionally ruling against the president keeps up the charade."

"Trump might have been sent packing this time, but don't expect his foils on the Court to go on a winning streak," Galbraith added. "SCOTUS will be back to their regularly scheduled losing soon enough."