The jury’s verdict that President Donald Trump must pay author E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in defamation damages has been upheld by a federal appeals court. This decision is the result of his persistent denials in public of her allegation of a sexual assault decades prior.
The court determined that the overall damages were “fair and reasonable,” upholding both the compensatory and punitive elements of the award, including a $65 million punitive penalty. Judges justified the heavy verdict by pointing to Trump’s remarks’ extremely harsh and consistent tone over a number of years.
The court denied Trump’s presidential immunity defense along with his appeal. Regardless of his official position, it found no legal justification for avoiding his responsibility in this civil case.
In her 2019 memoir, Carroll, a veteran advice columnist, claimed that Trump had attacked her during a meeting in the mid-1990s. This most recent ruling relates to defamatory statements he made later when he was president, following earlier convictions that found him guilty of both sexual abuse and defamation.
Trump’s legal team has acknowledged plans to take the lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court and referred to it as politically motivated.