President Trump is asking the Supreme Court to toss out the $83.3 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll, arguing that the justices' own presidential immunity ruling now shields him from liability. In a petition filed Tuesday, Trump's lawyers say his comments denying Carroll's sexual assault allegation were "official presidential statements" made while in office and therefore protected—calling this the first case in which a court has hit a president with damages for on-the-job conduct, reports the New York Times.
"If left standing, the decision below will cause significant damage, not only to this President and future Presidents, but also to 'the Nation that the Presidency was designed to serve,'" they wrote, per NBC News. The Justice Department has also asked the court to take up the case. An appeals court has already rejected Trump's immunity argument and upheld the 2024 Manhattan jury award, which included $65 million in punitive damages for what jurors found were malicious attacks on Carroll in statements, social media posts, and at news conferences.
The Supreme Court in June declined to review a separate $5 million judgment against Trump in an earlier Carroll case, triggering payment of that award, but Trump is now asking the justices to revisit that denial and hear both verdicts together. The court, currently on summer recess, is unlikely to decide whether to take the case before its late September conference.
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