Donald Trump and the justice department are asking the US supreme court to toss an $83m defamation verdict won by writer E Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault, saying he cannot be sued for comments he made while he was president.
It is the second time Trump has asked the justices to nix damages awarded by a jury to Carroll, a longtime New York advice columnist and former talkshow host. The supreme court refused in June to hear his appeal of another verdict, for $5m, that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
The latest case centers on comments Trump made during his first term as US president. The justice department wants to invoke the Westfall Act, which shields government employees from being sued for doing their jobs.
“Absent this Court’s intervention, the sitting President is facing nearly a hundred million dollars of personal liability for conduct that was well within the scope of his federal office,” federal attorneys wrote. “That alone deserves this Court’s attention.”
kinda funny that despite billions in graft he still can’t let this go.
Defaming someone he abused is part of his job!?!
This is their second time hearing this bullshit, so hopefully they’ll shut this one done too. Ya never know with these easily bribed asshats.
There’s a key difference between this case and the 5 million dollar case.
In this case, Donald Trump was the president when he made the defamatory statements. In the other case, he was not the president when he made the specific defamatory statements that were in the case.
In Trump v. U.S. (2024), the supreme court invested the presidency with criminal immunity for official acts. In this case, Trump wants to extend that to full civil immunity as well and they argue that defaming Carroll was an official act of the presidency.
Remember Bill Clinton?
SCotUS has already determined that the PotUS can be held civilly liable.
I do remember Bill Clinton. Bill is not a good precedent here because Bill’s lawsuit stemmed entirely from Bill’s pre-presidential behavior.
In E. Jean Caroll’s other $5 million lawsuit, SCOTUS declined to intervene. And that lawsuit is based on Trump’s non-presidential statements, same as Bill.
How can they make him immune to civil cases? That would be insane.
I would love to hear the argument for how repeated defamation is considered part of his job.
E Jean Carroll asks supreme court to throw out donald trump.
If the US Supreme court rule in Trump’s favour, it would effectively make anything he does as president within the jurisdiction of an official act.
This wouldn’t just make him king, this would make him an outright dictator. There’d be almost nothing he could be held liable for as sitting president.
That’s not how it works. Him bad-mouthing a private citizen just for criticizing him, is not an “official act” as president. If anything, it would be a violation of her 1st amendment rights to be attacked by a sitting president simply for expressing her opinion of him.
I think he may be going straight to supreme court so that he doesn’t have to post bond required in order to properly appeal the ruling.
I don’t think the ruling covered civil cases
