(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the $83 million judgment a federal jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll after a separate jury held Trump liable for defaming her when he denied her sexual assault claims.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump argued that he is immune from liability for statements he made while in office and accused a federal appeals court of refusing to recognize it.
“The Second Circuit instead engaged in procedural contortions to avoid addressing Presidential immunity,” Trump’s petition said.
In making the claim, Trump is invoking the Supreme Court’s controversial 2024 presidential immunity decision, which effectively shut down then-special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election probe and established sweeping protection from prosecution for “official acts.” Trump argues his public statements regarding Carroll’s claims were made in his “official” capacity as president.
The circuit court, in its ruling, blamed Trump for failing to raise his immunity argument in a timely fashion.
“Presidential immunity was not raised for the first three years of this case,” Judge Denny Chin said in the April opinion.
Last month, with no dissents, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of a separate verdict that held Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages. The money, plus interest, was subsequently transferred into her account, her lawyers said.
In his new pitch to the Supreme Court, Trump also asked the justices to find his statements denying Carroll’s claims were part of his job as president and to permit the United States government to swap as the defendant.
“Because accusations bearing on the President’s fitness for office are unquestionably matters of public concern, Presidential statements responding to press questions about such accusations are plainly official. This Court should say so,” the petition said.
The 2nd Circuit said Trump’s substitution request also came too long after the fact.
“The fact of the matter is 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,” Judge Chin’s opinion said.
A federal jury determined in 2023 that Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, and that he defamed her in a 2022 social media post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!”
In 2024, following a separate trial, Trump was ordered to pay $83 million in damages to Carroll for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegations of sexual abuse.
Carroll’s attorneys declined to comment on Trump’s latest petition to the Supreme Court.
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