President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to columnist E. Jean Carroll, arguing that statements he made while serving as president are protected by presidential immunity.
Trump’s appeal, which has not yet been formally docketed, relies on the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents broad immunity for official acts. The dispute centers on statements Trump made from the White House in 2019 denying Carroll’s allegation that he assaulted her decades earlier.
“This is the first case in our nation’s history in which a court has imposed damages liability on a president for his conduct in office,” Trump’s attorneys told the high court, according CNN. “Yet, in upholding the exorbitant $83.3 million defamation judgment here, the Second Circuit never even decided whether presidential immunity applies.”
Trump’s lawyers warned that leaving the judgment in place would “cause significant damage, not only to this president and future presidents” but also the country. They also asked the justices to consider whether the United States, rather than Trump personally, should be substituted as the defendant.
“Here, the president of the United States has been ordered to pay nearly $100 million in damages … for issuing a press release and answering reporters’ questions, from the White House, defending against attacks on his fitness for office,” his attorneys told the court.
Carroll’s attorneys declined to comment.
The filing comes after the Supreme Court declined to review a separate $5 million verdict finding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. That case involved Carroll’s allegation that Trump assaulted her at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York during the 1990s. Trump has denied wrongdoing.
The $83.3 million judgment arose from Trump’s 2019 statements denying Carroll’s accusation, including his remarks that she was “not his type” and had fabricated the allegation to promote a book.
A federal appeals panel upheld the award as “reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts.” The panel found that Trump had waived his presidential-immunity defense by failing to raise it earlier and concluded that the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity ruling did not change the result. The full Second Circuit declined to rehear the case in late April.
U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin wrote that “Presidential immunity was not raised for the first three years of this case.”
Chin also rejected Trump’s attempt to substitute the federal government as the defendant under the Westfall Act, writing that “no other defendant would be permitted to move to substitute the United States in his place, fifteen months after trial and the entry of judgment against him.”
Trump and the Justice Department had both indicated that they would seek Supreme Court review. The department has signaled that it intends to intervene and argue that the government should assume responsibility for the defense, a move that would likely end Carroll’s claim against Trump personally.
The Supreme Court is in its summer recess and is not expected to consider the petition until the fall. Even if the justices accept the case, a decision would not be expected before next June.
