The Justice Department said it intends to intervene in President Donald Trump’s appeal of an $83.3 million defamation judgment against him in the lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll and bring the case to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to consider another petition related to Carroll’s defamation cases against the president.
The DOJ shared its intention to petition the appeal to the high court in a Tuesday court filing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Trump’s personal lawyers asked the appeals court to halt efforts to put the judgment into effect to allow them to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
Both the full appeals court and a three-judge panel have denied the president’s appeal of the hefty judgment by a jury in January 2024 that he defamed Carroll in 2019. Carroll claims Trump defamed her by denying her allegation that he raped her at a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room sometime in the mid-1990s. Trump has repeatedly denied that the incident occurred, and his 2019 denials of the allegation led to Carroll filing the first of two defamation lawsuits against him.
Trump’s lawyers said in the filing that the petition to the Supreme Court will address “whether the President’s absolute immunity from civil claims based on official acts can be waived at all” and if the DOJ “timely filed, and did not waive, a renewed Westfall Act certification.” The Westfall Act gives federal government employees immunity from civil claims that fall under the scope of their federal jobs by moving liability to the government and away from the person.
The DOJ will ask the Supreme Court to allow the replacement of Trump with the federal government in the case, arguing that when he denied the rape allegations publicly in 2019, he was acting in the scope of his job as a federal employee, in this case as the president. The appeals court had denied claims by Trump that he was entitled to immunity for the comments he made as president.
APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS $83.3 MILLION E. JEAN CARROLL DEFAMATION JUDGMENT AGAINST TRUMP
The Supreme Court is sitting on a petition from the other defamation lawsuit Carroll filed against Trump for denying her allegations against him. The other defamation lawsuit stems from comments Trump made in 2022, when he was out of office, and resulted in a $5 million verdict.
The high court has set the case for discussion for one of its closed-door conferences, then rescheduled it seven times. Justices have not said when they will discuss whether to take up the appeal of the 2022 defamation case after rescheduling it again last month.