Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to wipe out the $83 million a jury ordered him to pay E. Jean Carroll, arguing that the verdict is not really about him at all. It is about protecting "the institution of the Presidency." Carroll's lawyers fired back on October 30, telling the justices they do not need "to bail out this president from the consequences of his repeated litigation choices."
The Verdict That Keeps Surviving
Quick refresher, because this case has been running longer than most prestige television. A jury in January 2024 awarded Carroll $83 million for defamation, less than a year after another jury handed her $5 million in her sexual abuse and defamation case against Trump. That first jury found that Trump sexually abused her and then defamed her when she went public. Trump denies all wrongdoing.
The $83 million verdict has been repeatedly upheld by lower courts. Carroll's lawyers made that point to the justices, and it is not a small one. When a verdict survives appeal after appeal, "the courts got it wrong" starts to sound like a hypothesis with a very thin evidence file.
The underlying dispute goes back to a June 2019 New York magazine excerpt of Carroll's book, in which she alleged Trump attacked her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store decades earlier. Trump's response, including calling her a liar, is what turned a sexual abuse allegation into a mountain of defamation liability.
Presidential Immunity, Now With Extra Reach
Here is the centerpiece of Trump's pitch. His lawyers claim presidential immunity shields him from liability for conduct during his time in office, including the 2019 statements in which he called Carroll a liar.
Sit with that for a second. The argument is that denying a sexual assault allegation, and trashing the woman who made it, was "well within the scope of his federal office." His lawyers say the sitting president is "facing nearly a hundred million dollars of personal liability for conduct" that fits that description, and that this "alone deserves this court's attention."
Is insulting an accuser a core presidential function? Apparently somewhere in Article II there is a clause about calling people liars on social media. Founders were famously thorough.
The Bankruptcy Violin Solo
Then comes the part where Trump's lawyers break out the tiny violin. A review of this verdict, they say, would "protect not the President himself, but the institution of the Presidency." They warn that "the specter of personal liability for official conduct, in an amount that would bankrupt virtually any other President, will chill the exercise of executive power by future Presidents."
Read that again. The filing insists this is not about Trump. It is about future presidents, who must be spared from the terrifying possibility of paying damages for defaming someone. The man asking is the one who owes the money. Pure coincidence.
Also notable is the framing of the number itself. The size of the verdict is presented as proof of how dangerous it is, rather than as evidence of how a jury judged the conduct. Juries do not usually hand out $83 million for light teasing.
Carroll's Lawyers Come Out Swinging
Roberta Kaplan's team did not bother with subtlety. They wrote that "while this President may want this Court's help, the Presidency does not need it." That is a clean sentence, and it lands precisely because it takes Trump's own framing and flips it.
They also laid out what Carroll has endured. "For seven years, through five appeals, eight stay motions, and six days of trial," they wrote, she has litigated in the face of "increasingly vicious accusations and thousands of threats of death and sexual violence from his followers."
The defamation, they argued, "had a domino effect." Carroll was "instantly and continuously attacked on Twitter and Facebook and in emails," including threats of sexual violence, physical violence, and death. That is the harm the jury was weighing, and it is the reason the number is as large as it is.
Trump Has Already Lost This Fight Once
The Supreme Court has seen a version of this movie before. In September, Trump agreed to stop fighting the first jury verdict after the justices once again turned down his effort to hear his appeal in that case.
So the track record here is a president who keeps asking the nation's highest court to rescue him from verdicts, and a court that has so far declined. Carroll's lawyers pointed to Trump's "repeated litigation choices," which is a polite legal way of saying he picked this fight, lost it, and kept picking it.
Trump's team responded to the new filing the way it responds to everything. A spokesman called the case a "Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes" and promised that Trump "will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare." Two juries, multiple appeals courts, and a Supreme Court that keeps passing apparently all count as the other side.
The Dingo Take
The spokesman says Trump "will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare." The record says two juries found against him, appeals courts keep upholding the damages, and the Supreme Court already turned him away once in September. At some point "winning" stops being a description and becomes a mantra you repeat while the judgments pile up.
Look at what the legal strategy actually asks for. A man found liable for sexual abuse and defamation wants the Supreme Court to rule that calling his accuser a liar was an official act of the presidency. Not a personal reaction. Not a human being lashing out. A constitutional function, protected by the same immunity that is supposed to let presidents make hard decisions about war and diplomacy. And he wants you to believe he is doing this for the institution.
Carroll's lawyers said it best: the Presidency does not need this. Neither does the Court. What this actually protects is one man's bank account, and what it would cost is the principle that a president who defames someone, and unleashes thousands of death threats on her, answers for it like anyone else. Seven years in, Carroll is still standing and the verdicts are still standing. The justices can let them stay that way.
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