Trump petitions to overturn $83 million Carroll verdict

Former President Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll, according to a petition filed on Tuesday, July 28. The filing initiates Trump's latest legal effort to challenge the verdict, which stems from statements he made in 2019 while serving as president, denying Carroll's allegation that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s.

The petition argues that Trump is shielded by presidential immunity, contending that his public denials of Carroll's claims were official acts because they addressed accusations directly questioning his fitness for office. His lawyers assert that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which upheld the verdict, never decided whether immunity applied. They warn that allowing the judgment to stand would damage the presidency by making future presidents fearful of personal liability for their official communications.

This appeal follows a separate legal defeat for Trump last month, when the Supreme Court declined to review a different $5 million verdict favoring Carroll from a related case. That judgment, which Trump has formally paid, involved a defamation...