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Lawyers for Donald Trump have requested more time to pay a $5m civil judgment to magazine columnist E Jean Carroll from 2023, days after the US supreme court declined to hear an appeal.

In a new filing, the president’s attorney said that since his former lead counsel, Justin Smith, took up a position as a federal judge last month (a post he was nominated to by Trump), his new lead counsel, Josh Halpern, needed more time “to become completely familiar with the facts and procedural circumstances” of the case.

A jury awarded Carroll damages after concluding that Trump had sexually abused her in 1996 and then defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019. Trump deposited money in an escrow fund to pay the award but is trying to delay the release of an amount that is now nearly $5.8m with interest.

Trump’s attorneys requested that the court extend the deadline for a response to Carroll’s request for payment to 14 July, arguing that the “plaintiff faces no risk of material harm as a result of granting this request”.

They argued that the judgment is secured by money held by the court, including “sufficient accrued interest to cover any post-judgment interest that would accrue if the Court were to consider Plaintiff’s motions”.

In a response, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, countered that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time”.

Kaplan said that Smith was nominated to the court of appeals more than five months ago and Trump “has had ample time to retain new counsel” and “should have been acting diligently to do that since at least February”.

Last week, lawyers for Carroll asked the court to require Trump to pay her the jury’s assessment of damages.

Trump has consistently denied Carroll’s claim, calling it politically and financially-motivated, and last week vowed to keep fighting what he called a “Weaponization and Lawfare Case” after the supreme court’s rejection of his appeal became known.

Trump’s attorneys contacted Carroll’s lawyer soon after, asking that the payout be delayed while the supreme court was asked to reconsider its decision.

Kaplan’s filing hinted at what Carroll’s counsel believes could be the next legal maneuver to challenge the civil finding. Kaplan wrote that Trump “has made clear” he plans to appeal a second defamation judgment of $83m in favor of Carroll to the supreme court and seek a rehearing on the first.

“We can only assume that Defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying Plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing,” Kaplan wrote.

But under another legal scenario, Carroll’s lawyers acknowledged, Trump could file an appeal that joins the two awards, with the second raising questions of presidential immunity since the second, larger defamation award relates to statements Trump made about Carroll during his first term.

Days before he stopped being the president’s lawyer and took up his position as a judge, Smith wrote to the supreme court last month that Trump intended to appeal the second case within the next month, writing that “because it involves the same parties and overlaps with the Court may wish to consider the petitions together”.