US President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling requiring him to pay writer and journalist E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defamation. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The dispute arose after Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault. The US Department of Justice also filed a separate petition with the Supreme Court. Trump's side argues that the disputed statements were made in 2019, during his first presidential term, so the politician should be protected from personal liability by presidential immunity.
"Without the intervention of this Court, the sitting President faces nearly one hundred million dollars in personal liability for actions that fell squarely within the outer perimeter of his federal office," Trump's lawyers said. Lawyers called the case unprecedented, as the president was ordered to pay compensation for statements made while in office.
The Department of Justice, in turn, asks to replace Trump as defendant with the US government. If the court agrees, the defamation lawsuit could be dismissed, as US authorities have immunity from such claims.
E. Jean Carroll publicly spoke about the alleged assault in 2019. According to her, Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegations, said he did not know the writer, and suggested she made up the story to promote her book. Carroll then filed a defamation lawsuit.
In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and subsequent defamation, but did not establish rape in the narrow legal sense as formulated in the jury questions. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages. With interest, she received about $5.63 million in July 2026.
A separate case concerned Trump's statements made in 2019 after Carroll's allegations were published. In January 2024, a Manhattan jury found these statements defamatory and ordered the writer to be paid $83.3 million. Thus, this amount was awarded not directly for sexual assault, but for subsequent defamation against Carroll.
An appeals court previously upheld the ruling, but allowed Trump not to pay the money until the Supreme Court reviews the appeal or refuses to accept it. In June, the Supreme Court already declined to hear Trump's appeal of a separate ruling on the $5 million payout. Now the president is trying to challenge the second verdict — for $83.3 million.
Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll have not yet commented on the new petition.