President Donald Trump's legal team filed a 24-page motion late Tuesday night asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to freeze the $83.3 million defamation judgment won by E. Jean Carroll, buying time for Trump to take his presidential immunity argument to the Supreme Court.
The move, led by Trump's presidential lawyer Justin Smith of the James Otis Law Group, asks the appeals court to stay its mandate until the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on whether to hear the case. Carroll's legal team, notably, does not oppose the request, provided Trump increases his bond by roughly $7.46 million to cover post-judgment interest on the original award.
The filing marks the latest escalation in a legal battle that stretches back to November 2019, when Carroll first sued Trump for defamation during his first term. What began as a single lawsuit has since sprawled into overlapping judgments, appeals, and constitutional questions about the limits of presidential immunity, questions that now appear headed for the nation's highest court.
Trump's lawyers are framing the case around two legal doctrines they say the Second Circuit got wrong: presidential immunity and the Westfall Act, a federal statute that can shield government employees from personal liability for actions taken in their official capacity. Fox News Digital reported that the filing argues three Second Circuit judges identified what Trump's team describes as legal errors on both fronts.
Smith put the stakes bluntly in the filing:
"This Court should now stay the mandate to allow President Trump to present important questions relating to, without limitation, Presidential immunity and the Westfall Act to the Supreme Court."
The filing goes further, warning that without a stay, Carroll could begin proceedings to execute on the $83.3 million judgment before the Supreme Court even decides whether to take the case. Trump's lawyers argue that outcome would cause irreparable harm.
Smith stated in the motion:
"Absent a stay, President Trump will suffer ongoing irreparable harm due to violation of his right to immunity from this defamation suit for his official statements as President of the United States of America."
The legal team also contended there is a "reasonable probability" the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case and a "fair prospect" the justices will reverse the lower court's rulings. They warned that allowing lower court proceedings to continue during Supreme Court review would, in their words, "eviscerate the immunity" the high court has previously recognized.
Carroll originally filed her defamation suit in November 2019. A jury returned a verdict in May 2023, the judgment Trump is now challenging. That $83.3 million award came on top of a separate $5 million verdict in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her. Trump has contested both outcomes.
The path to the Supreme Court has been grinding. The Washington Examiner reported that Trump's lawyers asked the Supreme Court for a 60-day extension to file a petition seeking review of the 2023 verdict after the full Second Circuit denied en banc review in June, following a three-judge panel's rejection of Trump's appeal in December. In that filing, Trump's legal team wrote: "President Trump intends to seek review by this Court of significant issues arising from the Second Circuit's erroneous decision."
The Carroll litigation has unfolded against a backdrop of broader legal and institutional battles involving Trump and the federal apparatus, fights that have defined much of his political career and both terms in office.
The lawyer pressing the case deserves attention in his own right. Smith, who filed Tuesday's motion, was nominated by Trump in early March to serve as a United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on that nomination on April 15.
Smith's dual role, arguing the Carroll case while awaiting confirmation to the federal bench, underscores how tightly Trump's legal strategy and his judicial appointments remain intertwined. It also signals the seriousness with which the White House is treating the immunity question.
The ongoing partisan conflict over the Supreme Court's direction adds another layer. Democrats have repeatedly signaled interest in reshaping the Court, and any high-profile Trump case landing on the docket will inevitably become a political flashpoint.
Perhaps the most telling detail in Tuesday's filing: Carroll's legal team does not oppose the stay. The motion states plainly that "Carroll does not oppose this motion," so long as Trump posts the additional $7.46 million bond to cover accruing interest on the original judgment.
That concession may reflect a tactical calculation. Carroll's side likely recognizes the Supreme Court will at minimum consider whether to take the case. Fighting the stay could burn goodwill with the appellate panel for little practical gain. But the non-opposition also means the $83.3 million judgment remains intact, accumulating interest, while the legal clock ticks.
The arrangement leaves Trump in a familiar posture: winning a procedural round while the substantive fight moves to a bigger stage. Whether the Supreme Court ultimately agrees to hear the case, and whether it accepts the immunity argument, remains an open question.
At its core, Trump's argument raises a question that extends well beyond E. Jean Carroll. If a sitting or former president can be held personally liable in civil court for statements made while in office, what are the practical limits of presidential speech? The Westfall Act was designed to protect federal employees from exactly this kind of personal exposure when acting in their official capacity. Trump's team argues the Second Circuit erred by finding that both the immunity defense and the Westfall Act protection were waived.
The filing warns that letting the judgment stand without Supreme Court review would set a damaging precedent. Trump's lawyers wrote that proceeding would "create a likely inability to recover funds if the Supreme Court reverses, as it should."
That argument carries weight regardless of how one views the underlying facts. Recent Supreme Court rulings have already reshaped the legal landscape around executive power, and the Carroll case could become the next landmark test.
Trump faced the original lawsuit and the resulting judgments while navigating myriad legal cases under then-President Joe Biden, a period in which his political opponents used the courts as aggressively as any campaign trail. The defamation suits, the civil liability findings, and the sprawling litigation all landed while Trump was simultaneously running for and winning another presidential primary.
Questions about judicial impartiality in Trump-related cases have dogged the federal courts for years, and this case will do nothing to quiet those concerns.
The Second Circuit must now decide whether to grant the stay. Given Carroll's non-opposition, that ruling could come quickly. If the stay is granted, the $83.3 million judgment remains frozen while Trump's lawyers prepare their petition for a writ of certiorari, the formal request asking the Supreme Court to take the case.
The justices would then decide whether the immunity and Westfall Act questions merit full review. If they agree, oral arguments and a decision could stretch well into the next Supreme Court term. If they decline, the judgment stands and Carroll can move to collect.
For now, the ball sits with the appeals court, and then with nine justices who will decide whether a president's words from the Oval Office can carry an $83.3 million price tag in a civil courtroom.
The answer to that question matters far beyond one lawsuit. It will define the legal exposure of every president who follows.
