Published | July 30, 2026

---

President Donald Trump and the Justice Department have formally asked the Supreme Court to overturn an $83 million (€71 million) defamation verdict awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexual assault.

The appeal, filed electronically on Wednesday, is expected to be formally docketed with the court later that day. In their filing, federal attorneys argued that the sitting president should not face nearly a hundred million dollars in personal liability for conduct that fell within the scope of his federal office.

“This is the first case in our nation’s history in which a court has imposed damages liability on a president for his conduct in office,” the lawyers wrote.

Trump has long maintained that he cannot be sued over comments he made about Carroll during his first term, when he denied knowing her and questioned her motivations for going public with her story in a memoir. The Justice Department has argued that the Westfall Act shields government employees from lawsuits over actions taken as part of their official duties, while Trump’s lawyers have contended that presidential immunity protects him from the award because he made the statements while serving as president in 2019.

The case stems from Carroll’s allegations that Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman in the spring of 1996. The longtime advice columnist and former television talk show host first made the allegations public in a 2019 memoir. She subsequently sued Trump for defamation after he accused her of fabricating the allegations to boost book sales, claiming he had never met her and that “she’s not my type”. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

A Manhattan jury awarded Carroll the $83 million (€71 million) in damages in January 2024. Lower courts have so far rejected Trump’s appeals to overturn the verdict, though a New York-based appeals court was divided on the decision and agreed to delay the payout until the Supreme Court weighs in.

This marks the second time Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn damages awarded to Carroll. In June, the justices declined to hear his appeal of a separate $5 million (€4.3 million) verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. In that earlier case, a 2023 jury concluded that Trump had subjected Carroll to sexual abuse in the department store encounter and defamed her with remarks made after his first term ended—a judgment that has since been paid.

Carroll’s lawyers have declined to comment on the latest filing.