OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:23 PM – Monday, September 8, 2025
A federal appeals court upheld the $88.3 million judgment imposed on President Donald Trump in regards to a defamation verdict of writer E. Jean Carroll.
The Monday ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision, concluding that President Trump did defame Caroll in 2019, after he denied sexually assaulting her during an encounter Carroll describes in a book released in 2019, taking place in a department store dressing room in the 1990s during a brief encounter.
President Trump repeatedly denied Carroll’s claims, stating that he had never met her and was instead suggesting that she was fabricating the incident to boost book sales.
Trump’s repeated denials led Carroll to pursue defamation allegations.
“We conclude that 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 opinion read.
“The record in this case supports the district court’s determination that the ‘degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented,” the opinion continued.
The three-judge panel ruled that President Trump’s statements calling Carroll a liar, “which were viewed by between 85.8 to 104 million people,” led to Carroll receiving “instant and continuous attacks on Twitter and Facebook and in emails. She received thousands of such attacks, including hundreds of death threats.”
The ruling follows a separate rejection in a Trump appeal from another case relating to Carroll by the same court, which saw Trump’s legal team challenge Carroll’s introduction of evidence in the civil lawsuit, which included the Access Hollywood tape, which surfaced during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The appeal could potentially move to the Supreme Court, as the full panel of judges declined to hear Trump’s appeal.
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