Former President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to E. Jean Carroll, escalating a legal fight that has already produced one failed trip to the high court and tens of millions of dollars locked in bond. The petition targets a verdict that Trump's legal team calls constitutionally flawed and that Carroll's attorneys say is bulletproof.
The move, first detailed by SCOTUSblog, marks the second time Trump has sought Supreme Court intervention in the Carroll litigation. The first attempt, challenging a separate $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict from May 2023, ended in defeat barely a month ago when the justices declined the case without noted dissent.
Now Trump is pressing the nine justices on the larger of the two judgments, a $83.3 million award from a January 2024 defamation trial. The stakes are enormous, both financially and legally. If the Court declines again, Trump faces the prospect of paying out one of the largest defamation verdicts ever entered against a sitting or former president.
The Carroll litigation produced two separate jury verdicts. In May 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and for defaming her afterward. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.
A second trial, focused solely on defamation, ended in January 2024 with jurors ordering Trump to pay $83.3 million. Trump denied the underlying allegations throughout both proceedings.
His lawyers put the denial in blunt terms in court filings. As AP News reported, Trump's attorneys Justin D. Smith and co-counsel wrote:
"President Trump has clearly and consistently denied that this supposed incident ever occurred. No physical or DNA evidence corroborates Carroll's story. There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation."
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the $5 million verdict in December 2024 and denied a full-court rehearing in June. The appellate court also upheld the $83.3 million defamation judgment on September 8, setting the stage for Trump's current Supreme Court petition.
Trump's legal team has centered its challenge on trial court rulings they say broke federal evidence rules. The core complaint: Judge Lewis Kaplan allowed testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago. Trump's lawyers argued that this testimony was improperly admitted and prejudiced the jury.
That evidentiary argument formed the backbone of Trump's first Supreme Court petition as well. Just the News reported that Trump's lawyers contended the trial judge's rulings were "highly evidentiary" in nature and tainted the proceedings. The Supreme Court's June 29, 2026, rejection of the $5 million appeal came without explanation, which is standard practice when the Court declines a case.
Whether the justices will view the $83.3 million verdict differently remains an open question. The evidentiary issues overlap substantially with the first petition, but the sheer size of the defamation award and the distinct legal posture of the second trial could give Trump's team a fresh angle.
Trump's attorneys have also raised presidential immunity arguments, contending that the litigation interfered with his duties as president. Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan has pushed back firmly on both fronts.
"We do not believe that President Trump will be able to present any legal issues in the Carroll cases that merit review by the United States Supreme Court."
While the appeals grind forward, the money itself has become a separate battlefield. Trump posted a $91.6 million bond on March 8, 2024, to cover the $83.3 million defamation judgment while his appeal played out. That bond, as National Review detailed, came after Judge Kaplan denied Trump's request for additional time to pay.
The judge was pointed in his reasoning, writing that Trump's financial predicament was "a result of his own dilatory actions." Kaplan noted that Trump "has had since January 26 to organize his finances with the knowledge that he might need to bond this judgment, yet he waited until 25 days after the jury verdict" to seek relief. The bond prevents Carroll from collecting the judgment while the appeal remains active.
A parallel fight has erupted over nearly $5.8 million held in escrow from the first verdict. After the Supreme Court declined the $5 million appeal, Carroll's team moved to collect. Trump's attorneys filed a motion asking Judge Kaplan to keep the funds frozen while a rehearing petition remains pending before the Supreme Court. Trump's legal team has been fighting to block the Carroll payout at every procedural step.
Trump attorneys Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio argued in their motion that "collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case." They also raised a specific concern: Carroll has publicly stated her intention to donate any recovered funds, which Trump's lawyers say creates an irreparable harm risk if the judgment were later overturned. The Washington Examiner reported that Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan countered that the Supreme Court's denial marked "the end of the line" for Trump's appeal of the first verdict.
The Carroll litigation sits within a wider constellation of Trump legal battles involving media and defamation. Trump has pressed forward with a defamation lawsuit against the BBC, and his family's legal team has demanded retractions from the New York Times over contested reporting.
Defamation law has become a high-stakes arena for political figures across the spectrum. In a notable recent case, Hunter Biden won a $1.7 million defamation verdict against a conservative media figure, underscoring how both sides of the political aisle are turning to civil courts to settle public disputes.
For Trump, the Carroll cases represent the most financially significant of these fights. Combined, the two verdicts total roughly $88 million. The bond obligations alone have required Trump to commit more than $91 million in secured funds.
The Supreme Court has not yet scheduled the $83.3 million petition for conference. Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the justices will request briefing from Carroll's side or simply dispose of the petition as they did with the first case.
If the Court grants review, it could address foundational questions about the admissibility of prior-bad-acts testimony in civil sexual misconduct cases and the scope of defamation damages when the defendant is a public figure. If it declines, Trump's options narrow to collecting his bond and writing a check.
Investigators and legal observers will need to determine whether the overlap between the two petitions helps or hurts Trump's chances. The Court rarely takes a case it has already passed on, but the different trial record, the different legal claims, and the vastly larger dollar figure could change the calculus.
The procedural posture is clear: the 2nd Circuit has upheld both verdicts, the Supreme Court has already turned away the first, and Trump is asking the justices to treat the second one differently. Carroll's team is betting they will not.
When $83 million hangs on a single certiorari petition, the law stops being abstract. It becomes a test of whether the courts will let a verdict of that magnitude stand on the evidence that supported it, or whether the rules that produced it deserve a second look from the highest bench in the country.
