Trump Set To Tell Supreme Court That E. Jean Carroll’s $83 Million Verdict Is a ‘Manifest Miscarriage of Justice’

The denial on Wednesday by the Second United States Appeals Court of President Trump’s bid to overturn the $83 million verdict against him secured by the sex and romance writer E. Jean Carroll likely sets up a Supreme Court clash between the president and the author.In a split decision, a majority of judges on the Second Circuit denied Trump’s motion to have his appeal heard “en banc” or by the full complement of the court. A spokesman for Mr. Trump denounced the “illegal, Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes” and vowed an appeal of “this decision as he continues to fight against, and consistently defeat, Liberal Lawfare.”Mr. Trump had asked the full Second Circuit to reconsider a decision in Ms. Carroll’s favor by a three judge panel of the same tribunal. That panel included Judge Denny Chin, appointed by former President Obama and Judges Sarah Merriam and Maria Araújo Kahn, both appointed by President Biden.That ruling preserved a jury verdict that held Mr. Trump liable for defamation — to the tune of $83 million — when he denied Ms. Carroll’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf-Goodman dressing room sometime in the 1990s. Mr. Trump said the allegation could not be true because she was “not his type.”The problem for Mr. Trump was that a different jury, in a $5 million judgment, had already held him liable for sexually abusing and defaming Ms. Carroll. The presiding judge, Lewis Kaplan, refused to allow Mr. Trump to challenge that ruling during the second defamation trial. The first jury did not find that Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll. Judge Kaplan nevertheless wrote after the jury’s verdict was brought in that the “finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’” He added that “Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing … long lasting emotional and psychological harm.” Mr. Trump denies any memory whatsoever of Ms. Carroll.Mr. Trump has already appealed the $5 million to the Supreme Court. The justices have not yet ruled on whether they will take it up. The president’s case for high court consideration argues that Judge Kaplan erred by allowing two other women besides for Ms. Carroll to testify about alleged sexual assaults by Mr. Trump and by allowing his hot mic comments to “Access Hollywood” to be played in court. Mr. Trump contends that those decisions were prejudicial.In this appeal — the one of the $83 million verdict — Mr. Trump had sought to replace himself as the defendant with the Department of Justice. That would have ended the case post haste, as the DOJ cannot be sued for defamation: Generally, though not universally, the government is protected by sovereign immunity against common law torts like defamation. Ms. Carroll is now owed a total of $88 million, though she has not yet seen a cent.The Second Circuit found that Mr. Trump “never wavered or relented in his public attacks” and construed Ms. Carroll as “a politically and financially motivated liar, insinuating that she was too unattractive for him to have sexually assaulted her and threatening that she would ‘pay dearly’ for speaking out.”The appellate tribunal also found that “the jury was entitled to find that Trump would not stop defaming Carroll unless he was subjected to a substantial financial penalty.” Judge Kaplan, whom Mr. Trump has called a “bully” and a “nasty guy” in addition to a“radical left lunatic” imprecation, ruled that the immunity argument was unavailable to Mr. Trump because he did not raise it at an earlier juncture in the case.In September, Judge Kaplan’s determination was affirmed by the appellate panel, who determined that Mr. Trump had waived his right to immunity. Any appeal to the Supreme Court, though, is likely to rest in large measure on Trump v. United States, the ruling that official presidential actions are immune from prosecution of any kind while unofficial actions lack that protection. Mr. Trump argues that because he denied Ms. Carroll’s claims using official White House channels, those statements fall under the protective umbrella of immunity. The Supreme Court’s “Rule of Four” requires four Supreme Court justices to vote to grant certiorari for the case to be taken up. The decision to deny Mr. Trump an en banc hearing was far from unanimous. Three of the appellate jurists — Judges Steven Menashi and Daniel Park, both appointed by President Trump, as well as Judge Debra Livingston, an appointee of President George W. Bush — would have granted the president’s request for a hearing of the full Second Circuit.Judge Menashi, a former editorial writer at the Sun, writes in dissent that the “United States should have been substituted as the defendant” and the “district court should have considered the defense of presidential immunity.” He also reckons that the “grossly excessive punitive damages award” — the $83 million owed to Ms. Carroll — “should have been remitted.” He concludes that “these proceedings represent a manifest miscarriage of justice.”Earlier this month the first official trailer dropped for a new documentary, “Ask E. Jean Anything.” The film by Ivy Meeropol promises to tell the “riveting story of E. Jean Carroll’s life, from her early days as Miss Cheerleader USA to her rise as a trailblazing journalist, author, and beloved advice columnist.” Ms. Carroll dispensed advice for Elle magazine for some 27 years. Last year she released a New York Times bestselling book about her experiences entitled “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President.”

Trump Set To Tell Supreme Court That E. Jean Carroll’s $83 Million Verdict Is a ‘Manifest Miscarriage of Justice’

Trump Set To Tell Supreme Court That E. Jean Carroll’s $83 Million Verdict Is a ‘Manifest Miscarriage of Justice’

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