President Donald Trump is making a desperate last-ditch plea to the Supreme Court in his scheme to avoid paying millions more to E. Jean Carroll.
After years of legal wrangling, Trump was finally forced to pay Carroll $5.62 million this month for a civil verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
However, that payout is merely a portion of the millions he still owes the author.
In a separate verdict, Carroll, 82, was awarded $83.3 million in damages in 2024 after a jury found that Trump, 80, defamed her with comments he made in 2019 denying her allegation that he sexually abused her in a Manhattan department store.
Now, Trump is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the verdict on the grounds that he is immune from Carrollâs lawsuit as president, leaning heavily on the courtâs 2024 decision granting presidents broad immunity for official acts.
The appeal marks Trumpâs latest attempt to undo a verdict that has survived multiple challenges; a federal appeals court panel upheld the damages award in 2025, and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his request for another review in April.
In their filing to the Supreme Court, the presidentâs lawyersâRobert J. Giuffra and Michael C. Martinich-Sauterâargued that the appeals court never addressed whether presidential immunity applied in the case.
âThis is the first case in our nationâs history in which a court has imposed damages liability on a president for his conduct in office,â Trumpâs lawyers wrote in the appeal, according to a copy obtained by CNN. âYet, in upholding the exorbitant $83.3 million defamation judgment here, the Second Circuit never even decided whether presidential immunity applies.â
The lawyers argued that upholding the appeals court decision in Carrollâs favor would âcause significant damageâ to Trump, future presidents, and the nation.
Trump is also asking the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump appointees, to review whether the federal government should have been named as the defendant in the case instead of him.
In May, the DOJ said in a filing that it would ask the court to swap Trump for the U.S. as the defendant in the case under the Westfall Act, which grants federal employees immunity from certain civil damages for actions taken within the scope of their job. That would likely trigger an automatic dismissal of the case, because defamation claims cannot be brought against the federal government.
With the Supreme Court on summer recess, the justices are not expected to consider whether to take up the case until late September.
The White House and Carrollâs lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, the Supreme Court rejected Trumpâs request that the $5 million civil verdict be tossed in an unexplained order, after which his legal team once again failed to persuade a lower court to block the payment.
Carroll took a victory lap, writing âThe Eagle has landedâ on X alongside a screenshot of a New York Times article reporting the funds had been released.
