Supreme Court Battle: Carroll Team Rejects Trump's Bid to Void $83m Verdict

E Jean Carroll’s legal team filed an opposition brief on 30 October, challenging Donald Trump’s final attempt to have the US Supreme Court dismiss an $83 million damages award. The attorney Roberta Kaplan argued that the justices should not intervene to save the president from the results of his own litigation choices.

The high court is currently deciding whether to hear Trump’s appeal. His lawyers claim presidential immunity shields him from liability for actions taken while in office. This includes his 2019 public statements calling Carroll a liar. They contend that without Supreme Court intervention, a sitting president faces nearly $100 million in personal debt for official conduct, a burden that could bankrupt any other executive.

Trump’s team stated that reviewing the verdict protects the institution of the Presidency rather than the individual. They warned that the threat of such massive personal liability would chill the exercise of executive power by future presidents. Kaplan’s brief counters that the verdict has already survived review by lower courts.

The $83 million award came from a jury verdict on 26 January 2024. This second trial focused on damages after the first trial in 2023 found that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll. Trump has consistently denied all wrongdoing in the matter.

Carroll’s lawyers detailed the toll of the seven-year legal fight. They cited five appeals, eight stay motions, and six days of trial. The brief noted that Carroll faced "increasingly vicious accusations" and thousands of threats of death and sexual violence from followers during the process.

The team argued that Trump’s defamatory statements had a domino effect. Carroll was attacked continuously on Twitter, Facebook, and via email. These attacks included specific threats of sexual violence, physical violence, and death. The lawyers concluded that while the president may want the Court’s help, the Presidency itself does not need it.

In September, Trump agreed to stop fighting the first jury verdict after the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal. The litigation traces back to Carroll’s claim that Trump attacked her in the dressing room of a department store in Manhattan decades ago. Her allegation became public in a June 2019 New York magazine article, which served as an excerpt from her book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team called the case a "Democrat-funded travesty" and said the people stand with the president to end the "Witch Hunts."