E. Jean Carroll slams Trump’s claim of presidential immunity — says he still owes her $83M verdict in defamation suit

Writer E. Jean Carroll is pushing back on President Trump’s immunity argument to get out of paying her an $83 million verdict — saying it was personal, and not an act of office, when he allegedly defamed her by denying her sexual assault claims.

Trump, 78, in September appealed the massive verdict the former “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist won on the grounds he has absolute immunity since he was president at the time he denied ever meeting her and called her claims a “hoax” and a “con job.”

E. Jean Carroll says it was personal when President Trump allegedly defamed her and so he shouldn’t enjoy presidential immunity in her case. Paul Martinka

Bu Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, fired back in court papers Monday arguing, “if there were ever a case where immunity does not shield a President’s speech, this one is it.”

“Donald Trump was not speaking here about a governmental policy or a function of his responsibilities as President,” read Kaplan’s papers filed in the Second Circuit Appeals Court. “He was defaming Carroll because of her revelation that many years before he assumed office, he sexually assaulted her.”

Trump asked an appeals court to overturn Carroll’s $83 million jury verdict based on the face he was in office when he made comments about her. Getty Images

Kaplan says Trump’s allegedly defamatory comments in the press and on social media about her client amount to “quintessentially ‘personal’ conduct.”

In January 2024, a jury found Trump liable in Carroll’s civil case of repeatedly defaming her after she went public in 2016 about allegations that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room in 1996.

Carroll, 81, also separately won a $5 million jury verdict at a civil sexual assault trial against Trump. The Second Circuit upheld that verdict in December.