Writer E. Jean Carroll again asked the Supreme Court to reject President Donald Trump’s appeal of her $83.3 million defamation verdict, urging the justices not to “bail out this President.”
The justices previously turned down Trump’s appeal in her separate sexual abuse case in June, and Carroll’s lawyers told them in a brief filed Friday to “do the same here.”
A federal jury awarded Carroll that sum in January 2024 over statements Trump made as president in 2019 denying her account. Another jury had found in 2023 that he sexually abused her in 1996 and awarded her $5 million. Trump has since abandoned his appeals of the 2023 verdict.
Government lawyers representing Trump argue in his petition that the ruling “wrongly eviscerates Presidential immunity,” which shields presidents from lawsuits over official acts. His petition says it 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 has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.
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