Trump loses appeal and must pay $83 million to E. Jean Carroll

President Donald Trump lost an appeal Monday with a court ruling that he must pay $83.3 million to columnist E. Jean Carroll. 

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the 'jury's damages awards are fair and reasonable' after Carroll won a defamation suit against the president last year. 

She had sued Trump over his repeated social media attacks after Carroll accused him of a sexual assault she claimed happened in Bergdorf Goodman's dressing room in 1996. 

Trump's lawyers had argued that the Supreme Court's July 2024 decision, which expanded presidential immunity, should apply to this case. 

Carroll was awarded $83.3 million after Trump was ordered to pay the longtime Elle columnist $5 million in a separate trial in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll. 

That judgment was upheld by an appeals court in December. 

The same court delivered Trump a loss in June, refusing to let the Department of Justice step in and take over the case now that he's back in office.

A statement from Trump's legal team on Monday indicated that the president would try that legal avenue again, as the president can now appeal the case to the Supreme Court or the full 2nd U.S. Circuit. 

'The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes, the defense of which the Attorney General has determined is legally required to be taken over by the Department of Justice because Carroll based her false claims on the President’s official acts, including statements from the White House,' a spokesperson for Trump's legal team told the Daily Mail in a statement. 

'President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he is focusing on his mission to Make America Great Again,' the statement added.  

Carroll said that she and Trump ran into each other at the Bergdorf Goodman department store and flirted while they shopped. 

But then in the dressing room, Carroll recounted Trump slammed her against a wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself upon her. 

In the initial trial, the jury concluded that Trump hadn't committed rape under New York's definition of the crime. 

The accusation first appeared in New York Magazine in June 2019, while Trump was running for a second term in office. 

Trump denied that the encounter ever took place.

'I'll say it with great respect: Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened,' Trump said in an interview days after Carroll's accusation was first published. 

In June, she published a memoir that used Trump's quote about her in the title - Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President. 

Carroll initially filed a defamation suit against Trump in November 2019.  

During a deposition in October 2022, while Trump was out of office, he was shown an image of Carroll and mistakenly identified her as his second wife, Marla Maples, despite his first wife, Ivana Trump, also being in the frame. 

'That's Marla, yeah. That's my wife,' the then ex-president said. 

Trump is also in the photo, with Carroll submitting it as evidence that the two were acquainted, something the president denied. 

In refuting her allegations, Trump has also called the columnist a 'liar' and 'mentally sick,' saying she made up the rape claim to get rich.  

In the same sit-down, Trump still insisted that Carroll was not his 'type,' telling a female attorney involved in the deposition, 'you wouldn't be a choice of mine either.' 

'I would not, under any circumstances, have any interest in you,' Trump said.