The full Second Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to rehear Donald Trump's challenge to the $83.3 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll, leaving the massive judgment intact and setting up a potential showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The denial came from a divided bench. A majority of the circuit's active judges voted against en banc rehearing, while three dissenting judges argued Trump deserved a new trial and should have been permitted to raise presidential immunity and other defenses. The split underscores how contested the legal questions in this case remain, even as the judgment clock keeps ticking against the former president.
The ruling marks the second time the Second Circuit has refused to disturb the Carroll verdict. A three-judge panel had already rejected Trump's appeal of the $83 million award before he petitioned the full court for another look. With that door now closed, Trump's legal team can take the fight directly to the Supreme Court, as Fox News reported.
The appeals panel pulled no punches in its assessment of the trial record. In its earlier ruling upholding the verdict, the court wrote:
"Trump has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury's damages awards are fair and reasonable."
The judges went further, calling the facts of the case "extraordinary and egregious" and concluding that the size of the award was justified in part to deter Trump from continuing to make defamatory statements about Carroll. The New York Post noted that the court specifically pointed to Trump's decision to keep attacking Carroll even during the civil trial as a factor supporting the jury's number.
Judge Denny Chin, writing in connection with the en banc denial, laid out the factual record in stark terms. AP News reported that Chin wrote:
"The record showed that Trump made multiple statements over many years accusing Carroll of lying for political and financial gain, and suggesting that Carroll was too unattractive for Trump to have sexually assaulted her."
Chin added that Carroll "was harassed and humiliated, subjected to death threats, and feared for her physical safety for years" as a result of Trump's public statements.
A central pillar of Trump's appeal was presidential immunity. His lawyers argued that statements he made about Carroll in 2019, while he was serving as president, should be shielded from civil liability. The appeals court flatly rejected that claim, holding that Trump failed to identify any grounds for reconsidering the panel's earlier ruling on the immunity question.
The immunity defense has become a recurring theme across Trump's legal battles. In a separate line of litigation, recently disclosed documents revealed interactions between Jack Smith's team and federal judges during the Trump investigations, raising questions about the boundaries of executive power and prosecutorial conduct that continue to ripple through the federal courts.
The Second Circuit's refusal to credit the immunity argument here does not necessarily predict how the Supreme Court would handle the question. The high court has shown willingness to engage with presidential immunity issues in other contexts, and Trump's team is widely expected to file a cert petition pressing the point.
The $83.3 million judgment stems from Carroll's second civil trial against Trump, which focused on defamation claims tied to his public statements about her. But it is not the only verdict Carroll has secured. National Review reported that the same appeals court had previously upheld a separate $5 million judgment against Trump from Carroll's first trial.
National Review columnist Andrew C. McCarthy offered a blunt assessment of the situation, writing that "while there are reasons to be skeptical of Carroll's claims, Trump has himself to blame for the legal blunders that led to the astonishing outcome." McCarthy pointed to strategic missteps by Trump's legal team as a contributing factor to the size of the combined judgments.
Trump has not been quiet about his view of the case. He called Carroll's lawsuit "a complete con job" and posted on Truth Social: "I don't know this woman, have no idea who she is." Those statements, and others like them, formed the basis of Carroll's defamation claims.
Three judges on the Second Circuit dissented from the denial of en banc rehearing, a fact that could carry weight if the case reaches the Supreme Court. Dissents from denial of rehearing signal that a meaningful faction of the circuit believes the panel got something wrong. In this instance, the dissenters argued Trump should have received a new trial and been allowed to more fully litigate his immunity defense and other issues.
The presence of a circuit split or a strong dissent is one of the factors the Supreme Court considers when deciding whether to grant certiorari. Trump's lawyers will almost certainly highlight the three-judge dissent in any petition they file.
The broader landscape of Trump-related litigation continues to expand. In another ongoing federal court fight, Democrats have filed a federal lawsuit to block a Trump executive order on mail-in voting, adding to the list of cases testing the limits of executive authority in the courts.
With the full Second Circuit declining to intervene, Trump's path forward runs through One First Street. A Supreme Court petition would likely raise the presidential immunity question, challenge the size of the damages award, and potentially contest evidentiary rulings from the trial court. The timeline for such a filing has not been publicly disclosed.
Investigators and courts will also need to address enforcement of the judgment if the Supreme Court declines to hear the case or affirms the verdict. An $83.3 million civil judgment is not self-executing. Collection proceedings, potential appeals of any enforcement orders, and questions about assets could extend this litigation for months or years beyond any final appellate ruling.
The Carroll case is hardly the only appellate battle with major political stakes playing out right now. In a separate matter, a federal appeals court recently cleared Texas to arrest suspected illegal border crossers under state law, a ruling that carries its own implications for the balance of power between state and federal authority.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether Trump's legal team has begun drafting a Supreme Court petition, but the expected next move is clear. The question is whether the high court will want to weigh in on a civil defamation verdict that has already survived two rounds of appellate review.
Breitbart first reported on the appellate court's decision, noting the ruling's significance in the broader arc of Trump's legal exposure.
An $83 million judgment and a divided appeals court do not settle anything by themselves. What they do is guarantee that this fight will land on the Supreme Court's doorstep, where the rules of engagement could look very different.
