On Monday, September 8, 2025, a federal appeals court delivered a decisive blow to former President Donald Trump, upholding an $83.3 million defamation verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll. The ruling, handed down by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, rejected Trump’s arguments for presidential immunity and affirmed the jury’s damages as fair and reasonable, marking a significant chapter in a legal saga that has spanned years and captured national attention.
The roots of the case trace back to 2019, when Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and magazine writer, publicly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. Trump, then president, vehemently denied the allegations, declaring Carroll was "not my type" and accusing her of fabricating the story to promote her memoir. These denials—made both during and after his presidency—became the basis of Carroll’s defamation lawsuits.
Carroll filed two separate lawsuits against Trump. The first, connected to his statements while in office, resulted in the $83.3 million award after a Manhattan jury found in January 2024 that Trump had repeatedly defamed her in 2019. The second lawsuit, enabled by a temporary New York law allowing expired sexual assault claims to proceed, included allegations of both sexual assault and defamation after Trump left office. In May 2023, a different jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, ordering him to pay Carroll $5 million—a verdict the appeals court upheld in June 2025, according to Reuters.
Monday’s appellate decision did not mince words. The three-judge panel wrote, "Trump has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable." The court further noted that Trump "acted with, at a minimum, reckless disregard for the truth" and that his attacks on Carroll "became more extreme and frequent as the trial approached." In their view, the "degree of reprehensibility" of Trump’s conduct was "remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented."
The $83.3 million award was split between $18.3 million in compensatory damages for emotional and reputational harm and $65 million in punitive damages. The court justified the scale of the award by citing the "extraordinary and egregious facts" of the case. Carroll’s public profile meant Trump’s statements reached an enormous audience—between 85.8 and 104 million people, according to court records. As a result, Carroll was subjected to thousands of online attacks, including hundreds of death threats, as detailed in the appellate ruling and reported by Fox News.
Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, welcomed the ruling, stating to Axios, "The court affirmed 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." Carroll herself, now 81, has continued to speak publicly about her experiences, releasing a new memoir in June 2025 titled Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President, chronicling her legal battles with Trump.
Trump’s legal team, however, was quick to push back, framing the cases as politically motivated. In a statement provided to Axios, a spokesperson said, "The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes." Trump himself has consistently denied all wrongdoing, characterizing the lawsuits as part of a broader campaign by political opponents to undermine his presidency and, later, his 2024 campaign.
Throughout the litigation, Trump’s lawyers argued that his statements about Carroll were protected by presidential immunity, especially in light of a July 2024 Supreme Court decision granting substantial criminal immunity to presidents. They maintained that Trump was acting in his official capacity when responding to Carroll’s accusations. The appeals court, however, was unpersuaded, writing that Trump "failed to provide any legal basis to revisit earlier findings on presidential immunity," and emphasizing that the conduct at issue involved "malice and deceit, caused severe emotional injury, and continued over at least a five-year period."
The court also addressed Trump’s claim that the trial judge, Lewis Kaplan, erred by excluding certain testimony in which Trump said, "I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency." The appeals court found that this answer implied Carroll’s accusations were false—an issue already decided against Trump in the trial—and was therefore properly excluded.
Monday’s ruling is the latest in a string of legal defeats for Trump, who is appealing other courtroom losses, including a May 2024 criminal conviction for falsifying business records and a civil fraud finding in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit over his family business. While Trump has managed to overturn a half-billion-dollar penalty in the civil case, the appeals process for Carroll’s verdict continues. The former president is expected to seek Supreme Court review, though legal experts note that the high court rarely intervenes in civil damages cases of this kind.
Meanwhile, the $83.3 million Carroll is owed continues to grow due to New York’s 9% annual interest rate on judgments. For Carroll and her supporters, the appellate court’s decision is a powerful affirmation of her claims and a signal that even the highest office in the land does not confer immunity from accountability. For Trump and his backers, the ruling is yet another example of what they see as a justice system weaponized against a political outsider.
As the legal wrangling continues, the case stands as a stark reminder of the collision between political power, personal accountability, and the enduring impact of public statements in the digital age. With the appeals process still ongoing, the nation—and the world—will be watching to see what comes next for both E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump.
