Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailGet our free Inside Washington emailA federal appeals court in New York has upheld a jury’s $83.3 million judgement against Donald Trump for defaming E Jean Carroll after the president claimed he was immune from liability.Trump “failed to identify any grounds” to reconsider the case on the grounds of presidential immunity, and the jury’s verdict was “fair and reasonable” given the “unique and egregious facts of this case,” the appellate judges said Monday.Last year, a unanimous jury returned a verdict awarding $83.3 million in damages to the former Elle magazine writer for the president’s defamatory statements during his first term in office and in the years that followed. A separate jury had already awarded Carroll $5 million in 2022 after finding Trump liable for sexual abuse.Trump was accused of repeatedly defaming Carroll by claiming he had never met her, labelling her a liar, and denying that he had sexually assaulted her in a New York City department store in the 1990s.After a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, a different jury in a second case awarded Carroll more than $18 million in compensatory damages in addition to $65 million in punitive damages.A federal appeals court has rejected Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn a jury’s verdict awarding E Jean Carroll more than $83 million in damages from a defamation lawsuit (AFP via Getty Images)In that trial, Trump was barred from disputing that the facts of that case, including whether he sexually abused Carroll, leaving the trial to focus exclusively on damages owed to her.A different panel of New York appellate judges in December refused to overturn the $5 million verdict after the president argued that the trial judge should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused him of sexual misconduct.Trump’s lawyers also argued that jurors should not have listened to his comments on the so-called Access Hollywood tape, on which the president is heard bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.Trump is expected to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in that case.In his appeal of the second defamation verdict, Trump’s attorneys argued that he should be shielded from liability under the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity, which shields the president from prosecution for official acts in office.Trump insists that he has never met Carroll and has repeatedly branded her a liar and the case a “hoax” against him — claims at the center of Carroll’s defamation lawsuits.His legal team had argued that the initial statements denying Carroll’s allegations were “issued through official White House channels” and “fall squarely within the outer perimeter” of the president’s official duties.But Carroll’s attorneys had argued to the appellate court that Trump’s statements and actions involved “personal conduct” that have nothing to do with the White House.Trump “was not speaking here about a governmental policy or a function of his responsibilities,” they argued. “He was defaming Carroll because of her revelation that many years before he assumed office, he sexually assaulted her. The defamation at issue concerned quintessentially ‘personal’ conduct.’”This is a developing story
Source link
Trump must pay $83 million to E Jean Carroll after ‘egregious’ defamation case, appeals court rules
