Justice Department Moves to Defend Trump Personally and Take E. Jean Carroll's $83 Million Defamation Case to the Supreme Court

Details

On May 5, 2026, the Justice Department told the federal appeals court in Manhattan that it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court for permission to intervene in President Donald Trump's appeal of the $83.3 million defamation judgment that writer E. Jean Carroll won against him. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate said the government will ask the justices to substitute the United States for Trump as the defendant, arguing he was acting as a federal employee when he denied Carroll's sexual-assault claims in 2019. Because the federal government cannot be sued for defamation, that substitution would end the case.

The filing puts the government behind Trump in a lawsuit he faces personally. As NBC News reported, it came days after the Second Circuit refused to rehear his case, and as he prepared a separate Supreme Court petition of his own. The two petitions would run on parallel tracks: Trump challenging the verdict personally, and the Justice Department raising the narrower question of whether the government may step in for him.

The Two Carroll Verdicts

Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, wrote in a 2019 New York magazine excerpt that Trump had sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. After Trump called her a liar, said she was "not his type," and described the account as a "hoax," she filed two civil suits.

• In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defaming her in an October 2022 Truth Social post, and awarded $5 million—about $2 million for the abuse and about $3 million for the defamation.
• In January 2024, a second jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million for defamatory statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president: $7.3 million for emotional harm, $11 million for reputational harm, and $65 million in punitive damages.

Trump denies all of Carroll's allegations and appealed both verdicts. His petition in the $5 million case sat at the Supreme Court from November 2025, with the justices rescheduling their private conference on it more than a dozen times without explanation, before the Court denied it on June 29, 2026—an outcome detailed below. The $83.3 million case is the one the Justice Department has attached itself to.

The Westfall Act Substitution

The substitution relies on the Westfall Act of 1988. The law shields federal employees from most tort suits—including defamation—for actions taken within the scope of their jobs, by making the United States the defendant in their place. Once the government is substituted, sovereign immunity bars the defamation claim and the suit is dismissed.

The department's position on whether the law covers Trump has shifted across administrations:

• September 2020: Attorney General Bill Barr's DOJ first moved to substitute the United States for Trump, arguing he spoke as president when he disparaged Carroll. That defense carried into the Biden administration.
• July 2023: After a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, the Biden-era DOJ reversed its position, saying it "lacks adequate evidence" that Trump was serving the government rather than acting on personal animus.
• April 2025: Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the department again moved to substitute itself, certifying that Trump had acted within the scope of his employment.

Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, has said Trump spoke out of "personal animus, ill will, and spite." Her legal team has argued that every decisionmaker to reach the question—other than Trump's DOJ when he controlled it—found he acted outside the scope of his job.

Two Courts Rejected the Substitution

The Second Circuit has rejected the substitution twice. A three-judge panel denied it in June 2025, and on April 29, 2026, the full court declined to rehear the case in a split decision. That denial cleared the way for a Supreme Court petition.

Writing for the majority, Senior Circuit Judge Denny Chin, an Obama appointee, wrote that no other defendant would be allowed to substitute the United States fifteen months after trial and judgment. The majority held that presidential immunity can be waived, and that Trump waived it by not raising it properly.

In dissent, Trump appointee Steven Menashi argued that the ruling conflicts with the D.C. Circuit's decision in Wasserman v. Rodacker, creating a circuit split the Supreme Court may want to resolve. He also wrote that Trump had raised presidential immunity throughout the case. That claimed split is the basis for the Justice Department's planned petition.

The Timing Problem and the Legal Debate

The strongest argument for the substitution is the statute itself, but the statute is also its main obstacle. The Westfall Act lets a federal employee seek certification that he acted within his official role "at any time before trial." Northwestern law professor James Pfander told CBS News that this language suggests a substitution sought at the appeals stage comes too late. He added that the attorney general's certification does not decide the issue, because courts still determine whether the conduct was official.

A separate question stems from the Supreme Court's 2024 immunity decision, which tied a president's protection to the "outer perimeter" of his official duties. A legal analysis by Zuckerman Spaeder argued that this doctrine arguably leaves the president with no need for Westfall Act substitution at all. The administration's defenders respond that certification is the ordinary path for any federal employee, that the Biden DOJ once took the same position, and that the line between official and personal speech by a sitting president is unsettled enough to warrant review.

The Appeal Bond

Carroll cannot collect on the larger judgment while the appeal continues. On May 11, 2026, the Second Circuit paused its judgment until the Supreme Court acts. Carroll agreed not to oppose the pause as long as Trump increased his appeal bond by about $7.46 million to cover interest through October 2027, bringing the total to nearly $100 million. Trump's lawyers argued he would face irreparable harm partly because Carroll has said she intends to give the money away, which could make recovery difficult if the verdict were later reversed. Kaplan said she was satisfied the court had required a bond of nearly $100 million.

Government Resources and the President's Defense

The intervention has drawn objections separate from the legal merits. CBS News notes that the Justice Department, a taxpayer-funded agency, is using its resources to try to eliminate a personal judgment against the president, for conduct a jury and multiple courts traced to private animus over an assault alleged decades before he took office. CBS News also reported that the department is now led at its top levels by lawyers who recently represented Trump personally. Carroll's team and other critics have argued that the department is effectively acting as his private counsel.

Trump's personal lawyer in the appeals, Justin Smith, has been nominated by Trump to a federal judgeship. Smith practices at the same firm as Solicitor General John Sauer, who argued Trump's 2024 immunity case at the Supreme Court.

A Criminal Investigation of Carroll and Her Funder

On May 27–28, 2026, CNN and NBC News reported that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation connected to Carroll's lawsuits. Run by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois under Trump appointee Andrew Boutros, the probe reportedly focuses on a trust founded by LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, whose nonprofit helped pay some of Carroll's legal costs. Investigators were said to be weighing charges of money laundering, obstruction, and conspiracy, along with a possible perjury count tied to Carroll's deposition testimony about outside funding.

Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade told MS NOW the probe was "weaponization." Senator Adam Schiff said the administration was using the DOJ to go after the president's accuser and called it an attack on the rule of law. Hoffman, a vocal Trump critic, said on X that he would not bend the knee.

A Broader Pattern

NBC News reported that the Carroll probe is the latest in a series of investigations and prosecutions aimed at people Trump regards as adversaries:

• James Comey: The former FBI director was indicted in 2025 over an Instagram post; a judge later dismissed the case.
• Letitia James: The New York attorney general, who won a roughly $450 million civil-fraud judgment against Trump's company, was indicted in 2025 in a case a judge also dismissed.

Critics, including a local editorial board, describe these cases as turning federal law enforcement into a tool for the president's personal grievances. Other observers note that the Comey and James prosecutions failed in court and that judges have so far rejected the Carroll substitution, pointing to those outcomes as evidence the judiciary is still acting as a check. Whether that holds at the Supreme Court is unresolved.

The Supreme Court Lets the $5 Million Verdict Stand

On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump's appeal of the $5 million verdict, the Associated Press reported—rejecting, in a brief, unexplained order with no noted dissents, the petition filed in November 2025 that the justices had rescheduled more than a dozen times. The denial leaves intact the 2023 jury finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her, a judgment the Second Circuit had upheld in December 2024 before denying en banc review in June 2025.

Trump's petition had argued the trial was tainted by the admission of the "Access Hollywood" tape and by testimony from two other women who accused him of sexual assault, evidence the trial court admitted under Federal Rules of Evidence 415 and 404(b). The justices turned the case away without addressing those arguments. Carroll's attorneys said after the denial that it was "time for him to pay" the $5 million, which has been accruing post-judgment interest since 2023 while held in escrow pending appeal. Roberta Kaplan said the denial meant Trump's "multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed." Trump called the decision "surprising" and vowed to keep fighting the defamation claims.

Trump nonetheless sought to delay payment, and on July 8, 2026, a federal appeals court rejected his bid to further postpone paying the $5 million, CNBC reported, exhausting his remaining avenues on that judgment.

The cert denial is notable for this entry in two ways. It came despite the Justice Department having thrown the government's weight behind Trump's position in the Carroll litigation, suggesting the Court is not inclined to rescue him from every Carroll judgment. And it cements the underlying liability finding—that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll—on which the $83.3 million defamation verdict builds, since the second jury was instructed to treat the first verdict as established. The denial does not, however, resolve the $83.3 million case or the Westfall Act substitution question at the center of this entry.

Status (as of mid-July 2026)

The $5 million judgment is final and paid: the Supreme Court declined review on June 29, 2026, an appeals court rejected Trump's attempt to further delay payment on July 8, and the New York Times reported that a $5.625 million payment—the award plus accrued interest—was disbursed to Carroll from escrow the week before July 14, after U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the funds released on July 8. The $83.3 million case remains open. As of the cert denial, Trump had not yet filed a petition in that case—on June 2, 2026, his attorneys told the Court they intended to appeal within the next month and suggested the justices consider both cases together, a pairing the June 29 denial forecloses—and the Justice Department had said it would bring its own petition on the substitution question but had not filed it. The roughly $100 million bond remains posted, and Carroll cannot collect on the larger judgment until the justices either decline review or rule. The criminal investigation into Carroll and Hoffman's nonprofit remains in early stages, with no charges filed.