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MANHATTAN (CN) — President Donald Trump on Monday failed to beat the more than $80 million penalty jurors awarded writer E. Jean Carroll in her civil defamation case stemming from Trump’s denial that he sexually assaulted her.
Trump wanted the Second Circuit to overturn the award jurors granted Carroll in the second of her two trial wins based on presidential immunity, an argument that has failed to carry water since Trump raised it in pre-trial proceedings — including at the circuit.
“Despite our prior ruling, Trump renews his argument that presidential immunity cannot be waived. He also argues, for the first time, that even if presidential immunity is waivable, any such waiver requires an ‘explicit and unequivocal renunciation.’ We hold that both arguments are foreclosed under the law of the case doctrine and reject Trump’s challenge on this ground,” the judges wrote in a 70-page unsigned opinion.
Carroll first went to trial against Trump in 2023, claiming he defamed her in 2019 by denying he’d ever met the longtime advice columnist, who published a book recounting that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at the famed Fifth Avenue department store Bergdorf Goodman.
Jurors awarded her $2 million in compensatory damages for Trump sexually abusing her, plus $20,000 in punitive damages. On the defamation count, Trump was saddled with paying $1.7 million in damages for a reputation repair program plus $1 million in other damages. The Second Circuit affirmed and denied Trump an en banc rehearing.
The second verdict carried a much higher price tag for Trump. On appeal, he pointed to precedent in the 1979 Supreme Court decision United States v. Helstoski to claim that presidential immunity is not waivable.
But whether or not the president can waive immunity was not at issue in the Supreme Court case he argued should grant him immunity against Carroll’s claims — that is, the court’s 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States , which granted him broad presidential immunity.
“Trump did not announce new law when it observed that presidential immunity is rooted in the structural separation of powers. It simply reaffirmed long-established principles,” the judges wrote.
As for the jury’s decision to award punitive damages north of $80 million, the judges found no error at the trial court.
As the judges write, “the jury was instructed to consider, among other factors, the amount ‘necessary to deter Mr. Trump from continuing to defame Ms. Carroll.’”
“Upon review of the evidence, we agree with the district court that the jury was entitled to find that Trump would not stop defaming Carroll unless he was subjected to a substantial financial penalty,” they said.
The panel included U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin, a Barack Obama appointee, and the Joe Biden-appointed U.S. Circuit judges Maria Araújo Kahn and Sarah A.L. Merriam.
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan celebrated the panel’s finding that “E. Jean Carroll was telling the truth, and that President Donald Trump was not.”
“We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done,” Kaplan said in an emailed statement.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team repeated Trump’s characterization of Carroll’s rape lawsuit as a “hoax” and said, “President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he is focusing on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
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