Two weeks after failing to sidestep a $5 million damages award to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation, President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to erase a separate $83.3 million defamation verdict she secured against him.
The financial judgments against Mr. Trump stem from two federal civil trials held in 2023 and 2024. In the first case, jurors found that the evidence was sufficient to hold Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll during an encounter in the 1990s and for defaming her after she publicly came forward in 2019.
The second trial focused on additional denials Mr. Trump made while serving his first term as president. He was held liable over statements that included calling Carroll a “whack job” and asserting that he had never met her. Carroll’s lawyers pointed to similar denials he repeated in public remarks, social media posts and even in court.
During that trial, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, urged jurors to award a sum large enough to “make him stop” defaming her client. Mr. Trump has continued to deny Carroll’s allegations.
In a filing submitted Tuesday, Mr. Trump’s attorneys argued that an appeals court panel wrongly avoided deciding whether presidential immunity shielded him from liability for the statements at issue.
“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,” his lawyers wrote.
The Justice Department, now led by Todd Blanche, Mr. Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, is backing his request for Supreme Court review. The department contends that Mr. Trump is protected under the Westfall Act because he was acting in his capacity as a federal employee.
According to that argument, Mr. Trump made the remarks about Carroll “from the White House, in response to press questions, denying allegations of personal misconduct directly questioning his fitness for office.”
Kaplan declined to comment on the latest Trump filing.
Carroll testified that what started as friendly banter when she bumped into Mr. Trump in 1996, at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan, led to an assault inside a dressing room. Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing and claimed he never met Carroll.
Mr. Trump’s yearslong efforts to overturn the two verdicts have been rejected by lower appeals and district courts. He has also asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to consider his appeal of the $5 million case. Carroll ultimately received $5.6 million in that matter, including interest.
It is not clear how much interest has accrued on the $83.3 million judgment, which has been held in a court-controlled account since 2024.
