Trump and DOJ Seek Supreme Court Review of $83.3 Million Carroll Defamation Verdict

President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice each filed petitions on Tuesday urging the Supreme Court to set aside a Manhattan jury verdict that requires Trump to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation. The lawsuits stem from statements Trump made while in office denying Carroll’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a department-store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

Trump’s lawyers argue that he is protected by presidential immunity because the comments were made in 2019, when he was still president. They contend the lower court erred by not recognizing that immunity despite Trump’s earlier references to it in pleadings.

The Justice Department’s petition takes a different angle, asserting that the United States should have been substituted as the defendant under the Westfall Act, which shields federal employees from certain civil claims arising from official duties. If the substitution had been allowed, the case would have been dismissed.

The petitions follow a recent Supreme Court denial of Trump’s request to hear an appeal of a separate $5 million verdict in Carroll’s favor. That earlier case, decided by a federal jury in May 2023, found Trump liable for both sexual abuse and defamation. Carroll has already received the $5 million plus interest from a court-controlled fund.

In the current case, a January 2024 jury found Trump liable for defamation based on his 2019 statements, a judgment that the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld. Trump’s counsel maintains the appellate court wrongly concluded that he forfeited immunity because his initial pleading did not explicitly invoke it, despite later references.

Both petitions seek to reverse the judgment that would require Trump to pay the $83.3 million award to Carroll.