Court Says Trump Can Delay $83M E. Jean Carroll Payment

UPDATE May 12, 2026 4:30 PM CDT

President Trump won't have to pay an $83 million defamation award to a longtime advice columnist until the US Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or reject an appeal, according to a court entry Tuesday. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to a request by one of Trump's lawyers that it let the president delay the payment to E. Jean Carroll, though it required that Trump post a $7.4 million bond to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll's attorney had made, the AP reports.

• The appeals court late last month refused Trump's request for a rare meeting of the full 2nd Circuit to hear an appeal of a three-judge panel's affirmance of the January 2024 verdict. Afterward, Trump attorney Justin D. Smith asked the 2nd Circuit to stay the effect of its decision upholding the award so that Trump would not be forced to pay the judgment before the high court has a chance to consider an appeal.
• Smith said last week there was a "fair prospect" that the Supreme Court will find in favor of Trump, who has called Carroll's claims first made publicly in 2019 that she was sexually attacked by Trump in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in spring 1996 a "made up scam."

May 7, 2026 6:10 AM CDT

President Trump's lawyer, hoping for an eventual Supreme Court victory, has asked a federal appeals court in New York to temporarily block a longtime columnist from collecting an $83 million defamation award. The lawyer, Justin D. Smith, asked the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Tuesday to stay its decision supporting the award so that Trump won't have to pay writer E. Jean Carroll while he appeals to the high court. A Manhattan jury awarded Carroll the payout in January 2024, notes the AP. Another jury in May 2023 awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding Trump sexually abused her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in 1996 and then defamed her after she published her account of it in 2019.

Trump has vehemently denied sexually abusing Carroll or ever knowing her and has repeatedly accused her of making accusations against him for political purposes or to promote her memoir. In court papers filed with the 2nd Circuit, Smith told the appeals court that Carroll's lawyer does not oppose the request for a stay as long as Trump increases the bond posted after the verdict by $7.4 million to cover any post-judgment interest that would accrue during a possible Supreme Court review. Attorney Roberta Kaplan, who represents Carroll, declined comment through a spokesperson.

Smith told the 2nd Circuit that Trump "will suffer irreparable harm" if he must pay Carroll now because she has said publicly that she plans to give the award away, meaning the president would not be able to recover the money if the high court reverses the verdict. Smith said there was a "reasonable probability" that the Supreme Court will take up an appeal, in part based on Trump's insistence that he has absolute immunity from a lawsuit stemming from statements he made while he was president. In support of his request, Smith cited arguments in a dissent by three 2nd Circuit judges to a decision last week in which the appeals court refused to put the case before all of the court's active judges, leaving standing a three-judge panel's September decision upholding the verdict. He wrote that there was "at least a fair prospect that the Supreme Court will reverse the Panel."