President Donald Trump has turned to the Supreme Court and the Justice Department to bail him out of having to pay more than $80 million to E. Jean Carroll after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
The Justice Department announced plans to intervene on Trump’s behalf in a Tuesday filing, saying it would ask the Supreme Court to swap Trump for the U.S. as the defendant in the $83.3 million defamation lawsuit brought by Carroll. That would trigger an automatic dismissal, because defamation claims cannot be brought against the federal government.
Meanwhile, Trump’s personal lawyer Justin Smith filed a petition with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals asking it to halt its latest ruling against the president, while he prepares to argue before the Supreme Court that the U.S. should substitute him as the defendant and that he should be granted presidential immunity in the case.
Last week, the 2nd Circuit Court upheld the defamation verdict, rejecting a request to rehear Trump’s claim of immunity and his attempt to replace himself with the United States as a defendant.
When reached for comment, a legal representative for Carroll told the Daily Beast that Carroll doesn’t oppose Trump’s petitions on the condition that he increases the bond to account for interest accrued during any proceedings before the Supreme Court.
The White House and the DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages in 2024 after she argued that Trump defamed her with comments he made in 2019, as a sitting president, denying her claim that he sexually abused her in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
A separate federal jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse against Carroll and ordered him to pay her $5 million. He has denied all of the allegations.
The DOJ, which is currently led by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is seeking to substitute Trump as the defendant in the defamation lawsuit under the Westfall Act, which grants federal employees immunity from certain civil damages for actions taken within the scope of their job.
Trump is also arguing that he has absolute immunity from Carroll’s lawsuit because they are statements he made during his presidency, citing the Supreme Court’s landmark Trump v. United States decision in 2024.
In the 6–3 decision, the Court ruled that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within their core constitutional powers, and presumptive immunity for other official acts taken while in office.
Trump has separately asked the Supreme Court to hear his challenge to the $5 million judgment finding him liable for sexual abuse, arguing the trial judge made errors by allowing testimony from two other women about alleged sexual assaults and by admitting his Access Hollywood hot mic recording, in which he made the infamous “grab ‘em by the p---y” comment, into evidence. The court has not yet decided whether to take Trump’s challenge.
