Judge Orders E. Jean Carroll Be Paid $5 Million Immediately as Trump Appears To Reach End of Appellate Road

The order by Judge Lewis Kaplan that advice columnist E. Jean Carroll be immediately paid the $5 million judgment owed her by President Trump clears the way for the funds, which are held in a court escrow account, to be transferred to Ms. Carroll pronto.Judge Kaplan cited the Supreme Court’s decision last month not to take up the 47th president’s appeal of the sexual abuse and defamation verdict against him, which was brought in by a Manhattan jury in 2023. Judge Kaplan ordered the money released notwithstanding a last-ditch appeal from Mr. Trump on Monday urging the high court to reconsider its denial.Judge Kaplan’s order does not touch a separate judgement levied against Mr. Trump in another case brought by Ms. Carroll — a further $83 million for defamation. That verdict, from 2024, brought the total amount, accounting for interest the president is obligated to pay the journalist, to $100 million. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though, has paused the obligation to pay the larger sum pending Mr. Trump’s exhaustion of his appeal process.Mr. Trump has until the end of this month to appeal the $83 million judgment to the Supreme Court. Both cases that Ms. Carroll won against him stemmed from an alleged sexual encounter between the two in a Bergdorf-Goodman fitting room sometime in the mid-1990s. Mr. Trump denies that the encounter ever took place and asserts that he “never met or touched” the woman whom he has called a “nut job” and “not my type.”Immediately after Judge Kaplan ordered the funds released Mr. Trump filed an appeal with the Second Circuit seeking intervention to block the payment. Mr. Trump’s legal team issued a statement declaring that “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes.”Mr. Trump’s lawyers had argued in a filing to Judge Kaplan that “Collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.” Ms. Carroll’s legal team, though, pointed to an earlier ruling from the Second Circuit that appeared to stipulate that payment would be owed if Mr. Trump’s writ of certiorari was rejected by the high court, which happened last week.Mr. Trump’s appeal for reconsideration of that denial argues that the Nine ought to consider the $5 million and $83 million verdicts on a “conjoined” basis — meaning as a single appeal. The advantage of that approach for the president is that the comments at issue in the $83 million case were made while he was president. That means that Mr. Trump can argue that he is protected by the overhang of presidential immunity. The high court’s landmark case on immunity, though, Trump v. United States, concerned protections afforded to presidents from criminal prosecution, not civil litigation. The Supreme Court has ruled that sitting presidents do not have immunity from civil lawsuits for unofficial conduct or actions that occurred before taking office. They enjoy absolute immunity for acts that fall within the outer perimeter of their official duties. Mr. Trump is currently facing a lawsuit that seeks to hold him civilly liable for the events of January 6, 2021. He argues that his speech at the Ellipse on that day should be considered part of his official duties. A federal judge, Amit Mehta, has ruled that it ought to be reckoned outside of those duties because he was acting as a campaigner for office — after an election that he lost — rather than a presidential incumbent.That case, which was brought by a group of Capitol Hill police officers and Democratic congressmen, is still at the trial level as the Judge Mehta sorts out the immunity issue. The claimants are seeking to hold Mr. Trump liable for millions of dollars.

Judge Orders E. Jean Carroll Be Paid $5 Million Immediately as Trump Appears To Reach End of Appellate Road

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