Trump penalty of $83M in E. Jean Carroll case upheld by appeals court
E. Jean Carroll leaves the courthouse on Sept. 6, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld that President Donald Trump must pay an $83 million penalty for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019, rejecting Trump’s argument that presidential immunity shields him from the punishment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan reaffirmed a lower court decision denying Trump’s claim that the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision granting presidential immunity protects him, and his assertion that the monetary punishment was excessive.
The three-judge panel wrote that Trump never argued “absolute” presidential immunity as the defamation case proceeded in 2020, and “hence, he may not do so now.” At the time, he argued for temporary immunity until he was out of office.
The decision was unsigned. The appeal was before Judges Denny Chin, who was appointed to the bench in 2010 by President Barack Obama; Sarah A. L. Merriam, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022; and Maria Araújo Kahn, appointed by Biden in 2023.
Trump statements
The case centered on Trump’s statements about Carroll after New York magazine published an excerpt of the writer’s new book in June 2019, in which she alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in a fitting room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1996.
Trump repeatedly made public statements and social media posts claiming Carroll’s story was “totally fabricated” and that he didn’t know her, despite being previously photographed with her.
Trump began to claim absolute presidential immunity in December 2022, years into the case, and a district court denied his request for a summary judgement, ruling that he had waived any claim to it by failing to raise it in previous court filings.
Trump appealed to the 2nd Circuit and argued in a September 2024 brief that “presidential immunity is fatal to Carroll’s claims” and that Trump cannot be held liable for defamatory statements he made.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision in July 2024 that former U.S. presidents enjoy absolute criminal immunity for “core Constitutional” powers and are “entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” but are not immune from criminal prosecution for “unofficial acts.”
Trump escalated the question of presidential immunity to the Supreme Court after being federally indicted on defrauding the American public by claiming falsely that he won the 2020 presidential election and allegedly conspiring to overturn the result.
‘Extraordinary and unprecedented conduct’
Trump had also argued the dollar amount the jury awarded to Carroll — $65 million of which was for punitive damages — was “grossly excessive.”
The appeals court rejected that claim, highlighting that Trump continued to make defamatory remarks about Carroll during the yearslong litigation.
“For nearly five years, Trump never wavered or relented in his public attacks on Carroll,” the judges wrote, even though he was found guilty in a separate but closely related civil case — a jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the mid-1990s.
“The statements all shared common themes: Trump continued to assert that Carroll was lying about the 1996 sexual assault and that she was motivated to do so for personal, financial, and political reasons, and to imply that Carroll was too unattractive to be sexually assaulted. He also began to claim that Carroll’s lawsuit was part of a conspiracy to interfere with the 2024 election, and vowed to continue to make similar statements in the future.”
The judges said Trump’s behavior amounted to “extraordinary and unprecedented conduct.”