Trump, DOJ Ask SCOTUS to Void $83.3M Carroll Verdict
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- Trump and DOJ petition the Supreme Court to review Carroll's $83.3 million defamation award from her second civil trial, filed after a lower court rejected both the Westfall Act effort and Trump's presidential immunity defense
- DOJ is invoking the 1988 Westfall Act to substitute itself as the defendant — a law meant to shield federal employees from lawsuits over actions within the scope of their jobs — which would remove Trump from personal liability
- DOJ's filing warns that "absent this Court's intervention, the sitting President is facing nearly a hundred million dollars of personal liability for conduct that was well within the scope of his federal office"
- An appeals court had already rejected Trump's argument that his statements were official presidential acts, ruling he forfeited the issue by not raising it earlier; Trump's personal attorneys counter that "presidential statements responding to press questions about such accusations are plainly official"
- The first trial's $5 million award — from the 2022 jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation — has already been transferred to Carroll's law firm after SCOTUS declined Trump's appeal last month
- The Supreme Court will consider both petitions at a closed-door conference after returning from summer recess, noting the justices turn away the vast majority of cert requests
- Carroll, a longtime advice writer, brought Trump to civil trial twice over accusations he sexually assaulted her in a mid-1990s Manhattan department store dressing room; Trump denies her account
Why it matters: If the Westfall Act gambit succeeds, Trump personally walks away from the $83.3 million judgment and the federal government absorbs it instead, while the broader precedent would give sitting presidents a new legal avenue to convert personal defamation claims into claims against the U.S. government.
