Trump asks Supreme Court to overturn $83.3 million E. Jean Carroll case - cbsnews.com

What the report says

CBS News reports that President Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll. The filing comes shortly after Trump failed in a separate effort to avoid paying damages in another Carroll case, where she ultimately received $5.6 million including interest.

The judgments stem from two federal civil trials in 2023 and 2024. In the first, a jury found Trump liable under a civil standard for sexually abusing Carroll during an encounter she said occurred in the 1990s at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan, and for defaming her after she spoke publicly in 2019. The second case concerned statements Trump made while president, including denials of Carroll’s account and disparaging remarks about her. Trump has continued to deny wrongdoing and has said he never met Carroll.

According to CBS, Trump’s lawyers argued in Tuesday’s filing that an appeals court should have addressed whether he had presidential immunity for the statements made while in office. The Justice Department, led by Trump’s former criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche, is supporting Supreme Court review and argues that the Westfall Act shields Trump because he was acting as a federal employee responding to questions about allegations that implicated his fitness for office.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declined to comment to CBS on the latest filing. Lower courts have previously rejected Trump’s attempts to undo the verdicts, and he has also asked the Supreme Court to revisit its refusal to take up the $5 million case. The $83.3 million award has been held in a court-controlled account since 2024, though CBS said the amount of accrued interest is unclear.