E Jean Carroll’s lawyers are fighting Donald Trump’s efforts to toss her $83m damages verdict in the US supreme court, telling the justices that they do not need “to bail out this president from the consequences of his repeated litigation choices”.
Jurors delivered Carroll the huge award on 26 January 2024, less than one year after the journalist and author won $5m in her sexual abuse and defamation case against Trump. The president has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing in relation to Carroll.
Carroll’s legal team on 30 October filed their opposition to Trump’s request that the supreme court consider his appeal of Carroll’s massive win . Among Trump’s legal arguments is a claim that presidential immunity protects him from liability from conduct during his time in office, including 2019 statements in which he called Carroll a liar.
Trump’s lawyers have also claimed that absent supreme court intervention, “the sitting President is facing nearly a hundred million dollars of personal liability for conduct that was well within the scope of his federal office … that alone deserves this court’s attention.”
Trump’s lawyers said that a supreme court review of this verdict would “protect not the President himself, but the institution of the Presidency”. They said “after all, the specter of personal liability for official conduct, in an amount that would bankrupt virtually any other President, will chill the exercise of executive power by future Presidents.”
Carroll’s lawyers, helmed by attorney Roberta Kaplan, noted that the verdict in Carroll’s second trial – which weighed damages, as the former Elle columnist’s first trial ended in a jury finding that Trump sexually abused and defamed her – has been repeatedly upheld by lower courts, undermining Trump’s request.
“For seven years – through five appeals, eight stay motions, and six days of trial – Ms Carroll has litigated this case in the face of petitioner’s increasingly vicious accusations and thousands of threats of death and sexual violence from his followers,” they wrote.
Trump’s defamatory statements, they said, “had a domino effect”. Carroll, they said, was “instantly and continuously attacked on Twitter and Facebook and in emails”. These attacks included “threats of sexual violence, physical violence, and death.”
“While this President may want this Court’s help, the Presidency does not need it,” they also said.
Trump in September agreed to stop fighting the first jury verdict after the supreme court once again rebuffed his efforts to hear his appeal.
The litigation stems from Carroll’s claim that Trump attacked her in the dressing room of a Tony Manhattan department store several decades earlier. Carroll’s allegation went public in a June 2019 New York magazine article, which was an excerpt of her then forthcoming book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.
Asked for comment on Carroll’s new filing, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said: “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes. President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
