Trump Asks Supreme Court to Toss $83.3M Carroll Defamation Verdict

US President Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to overturn an $83.3 million jury award granted to writer E. Jean Carroll in her defamation lawsuit, according to a petition reviewed by Bloomberg News.

The petition, filed on Tuesday, marks Trump's latest legal battle with the former Elle magazine advice columnist, who accused him of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s. The filing comes just a month after the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal against a separate $5 million verdict in Carroll's related sexual abuse case.

Trump's appeal centres on the argument that his statements denying Carroll's allegations, made while he was serving as President during his first term, were official acts protected by presidential immunity.

In the petition, Trump's lawyers argued that allegations concerning a President's fitness for office are matters of public concern and that responses to such accusations made in an official capacity should be immune from civil liability.

A spokesperson for Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, declined to comment.

Trump is also awaiting the Supreme Court's decision on his request to reconsider its refusal to hear his appeal in the separate $5 million case. He has denied any wrongdoing in both lawsuits.

Carroll alleged that Trump defamed her in 2019 by calling her a liar after she publicly claimed he had sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in New York in 1996. She argued that Trump falsely accused her of fabricating the allegation for political motives and to promote her book.

A New York jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in January 2024 after finding that Trump's statements had defamed her. The verdict was later upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Unlike Carroll's other successful lawsuit, this case concerns statements Trump made while serving as President. He contends that the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on presidential immunity should shield him from liability because his comments were made in the course of his official duties.

Trump further argues that the appeals court wrongly concluded he had forfeited his immunity defence by failing to raise it earlier in the litigation.

In the Supreme Court petition, his lawyers described the judgment as unprecedented, arguing that it was the first time a US court had imposed civil damages on a President for conduct undertaken while in office.

The legal team also criticised the appeals court for upholding what it called an "exorbitant" $83.3 million award without first determining whether presidential immunity applied to Trump's statements, which were made from the White House in response to media questions.

Trump is represented by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., co-chair of Sullivan & Cromwell, and Michael Martinich-Sauter of the James Otis Law Group.

The US Department of Justice is expected to ask the Supreme Court to allow it to intervene on Trump's behalf. It has previously indicated that it will seek to substitute the US government as the defendant under the Westfall Act of 1988, which grants federal employees immunity from personal liability for actions taken within the scope of their official duties.

If the substitution is permitted, the lawsuit would be dismissed because the US government cannot be sued for defamation. Similar requests were previously rejected by both the trial court and the appeals court.

The central issue is whether Trump, as President, was acting within the scope of his official duties when he denied Carroll's allegations.

Carroll's separate civil action was brought under a temporary New York law that allowed survivors of historic sexual assaults to pursue civil claims. That case also included a defamation claim based on statements Trump made in 2022 after leaving office, when he was a private citizen.