President Donald Trump and the Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn an $83.3 million defamation verdict that a jury ordered him to pay to writer E. Jean Carroll, marking the latest phase in a yearslong legal battle between the two.
Trump’s legal team argued that he is entitled to presidential immunity because he made the disputed statements denying Carroll’s sexual assault allegations in 2019 while serving as president. The Justice Department filed a separate petition taking a different legal approach, arguing that the federal government, rather than Trump personally, should be the defendant in the case under a 1988 federal law known as the Westfall Act, which shields federal employees from certain civil lawsuits for conduct performed in their official duties.
Both petitions rely on a 2024 Supreme Court decision that granted presidents broad immunity for actions taken in office, finding that “most of a President’s public communications” constitute official acts. Trump’s attorneys contend that the recent ruling requires the verdict against him to be overturned. In their petition, they argued this case marks the first time in American history that a court has imposed damages liability on a president for conduct in office.
The $83.3 million verdict stemmed from statements Trump made in 2019 when he denied Carroll’s claim that he had sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. At that time, Trump was serving his first term in the White House. Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, had publicly accused Trump of the assault earlier that year. After her allegations became public, Trump called her a liar, said she was not his “type,” and claimed she fabricated the story to boost sales of her forthcoming book.
A federal appeals court in New York upheld the verdict in September 2025, finding that Trump had forfeited any claim to presidential immunity by not raising it early enough in the litigation. The three-judge panel ruled that the damages award of $83.3 million was “fair and reasonable” given what they called the “extraordinary and egregious facts” of the case. They found that Trump had been “recklessly indifferent” to Carroll’s “health and safety” when making defamatory statements about her.
The Justice Department’s petition, filed under the Trump administration that took office in January 2025, seeks to have the federal government substituted as the defendant. If successful, the lawsuit would likely be dismissed because the Westfall Act shields federal employees from defamation suits for conduct within the scope of their employment. The DOJ argued that allowing the judgment to stand would threaten the ability of future presidents to fearlessly execute their official duties.
This appeal marks the second major push by Trump to overturn a verdict in favor of Carroll. Just a month earlier, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of a separate $5 million civil verdict that a jury had awarded Carroll in 2023, finding him liable for sexual abuse and for defaming her again in 2022 when he was out of office. Despite that rejection, Trump filed a petition asking the court to reconsider its decision. Carroll has since received the $5 million from that verdict along with interest.
In total, Carroll has prevailed in two civil trials against Trump, securing nearly $88.3 million in verdicts over the seven-year period since she first publicly accused him of sexual assault in 2019. Trump has vigorously denied all of her allegations, and his legal team continues to challenge both verdicts through the court system.
Carroll’s attorneys declined to comment on the new petitions. The Supreme Court typically does not consider cases during its summer recess. If the court agrees to hear the case, a decision is unlikely until mid-2027 at the earliest. It remains unclear whether the justices will take up either of the two competing petitions filed on behalf of Trump and the Department of Justice.