The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to rehear Donald Trump’s challenge to the $83 million defamation verdict won by writer E. Jean Carroll — ruling 5-3 against the former president on April 29, 2026. Trump remains the only U.S. president in American history ever found civilly liable for sexual abuse by a jury. Every legal challenge to that finding has failed.
How This Case Got Here
The Carroll case began in 2019, when she publicly accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York City in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegations, called Carroll a liar, said she was “not his type,” and claimed she invented the story to sell a book. Those denials — many made from the White House during his first term in office — became the basis for two separate lawsuits.
In 2023, a federal jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual abuse and awarded Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. That verdict was historic — no sitting or former U.S. president had ever been found civilly liable for a sex crime by a jury. In January 2024, a second jury went further, awarding Carroll an additional $83 million for defamation, holding Trump accountable for years of public statements denying the assault and attacking her credibility.
What Trump’s Legal Team Argued — and Why It Failed
Trump’s attorneys mounted an aggressive appeal of the $83 million verdict, advancing two main arguments. First, they argued that because the defamatory statements were made while Trump was serving as president, the United States government should be substituted as the defendant under the Federal Tort Claims Act. If that argument had succeeded, it would have ended the case entirely — the government cannot be sued for defamation. The appeals court rejected that argument, ruling it was raised too late in the litigation to be considered.
Second, Trump’s team raised a presidential immunity claim, arguing that statements made in the course of official presidential duties are shielded from civil liability. The majority rejected this too, again citing the timing of the argument. The result: both the $83 million defamation verdict and the original $5 million sexual abuse verdict remain fully intact and enforceable.
The Dissent That Could Take This to the Supreme Court
Three judges dissented from the ruling. Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote that the case raises genuine and unresolved constitutional questions about the scope of presidential immunity — questions she argued the full court should reconsider before dismissing. That dissent matters strategically. It gives Trump’s legal team a credible foundation to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review.
The Supreme Court is already separately weighing Trump’s appeal of the $5 million verdict from the first Carroll trial. That means SCOTUS could potentially have both Carroll cases before it simultaneously. The central legal question — whether a president’s personal statements made while in office are shielded by executive immunity from civil defamation suits — has never been definitively resolved by the nation’s highest court.
What This Means for Americans
For most Americans, the Carroll verdicts represent a straightforward question of accountability: did a former president defame a woman who accused him of a crime, and should he be held financially responsible? Every jury and every appeals court to consider that question has said yes. But Trump’s legal team is betting that the Supreme Court sees the underlying immunity issue differently — and that a favorable ruling could wipe out both verdicts entirely. Whatever the Supreme Court decides will set lasting precedent, shaping how future presidents can respond to personal accusations without legal consequence. Carroll’s legal wins have held at every turn so far. Whether they survive a Supreme Court challenge is now the only question left.
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