A federal appeals court on Monday handed President Donald Trump a procedural win, ruling he does not have to pay an $83 million defamation award to writer E. Jean Carroll while he seeks review from the U.S. Supreme Court. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York granted the stay but conditioned it on Trump posting an additional $7.46 million bond to cover interest that would accrue during further proceedings.
The ruling does not erase the judgment. It pauses collection, a meaningful distinction that Carroll's legal team was quick to frame on its own terms.
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, told NBC News in a statement:
"We are pleased that the Second Circuit conditioned the stay on President Trump posting a bond of nearly $100 million."
That figure reflects the original $83 million award plus accumulated interest that had already pushed the total past $91 million before Monday's order. With the new $7.46 million bond requirement, Kaplan's characterization of "nearly $100 million" lands close to the mark, though the precise total after Monday was not specified in the court's order.
The 2nd Circuit granted Trump's request to pause its own earlier ruling, one that had denied him a chance to challenge the defamation award before the full appeals court. That earlier denial came last month, when the court rejected a request for a full-court rehearing after a three-judge panel had already affirmed the January 2024 jury verdict.
Carroll did not object to the stay, so long as Trump agreed to raise his bond by $7.46 million to account for the interest expected to accrue during the time it takes for the Supreme Court to decide whether to take the case, or decline to hear it altogether. As the Washington Times reported, the underlying verdict had already been upheld by a three-judge panel before the full circuit declined to rehear it.
The stay means the case now moves toward the Supreme Court. Trump attorney Justin D. Smith said there was a "fair prospect" that the high court will find in Trump's favor, AP News reported.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the appeals court decision as of Tuesday night.
Trump's legal team has pursued a creative line of defense throughout this case. His attorneys are seeking to invoke a federal statute, the specific law was not named in court filings described in coverage, that would swap Trump out as the defendant entirely and replace him with the U.S. government. The logic: if some of Trump's statements were made in his official capacity as president, the proper defendant is the federal government, not Trump personally.
And because the federal government cannot be sued for defamation, that substitution would effectively end the case. The appeals court rejected that argument last month when it denied a full-court rehearing on the matter. But Trump's attorneys have signaled they intend to press the issue at the Supreme Court level.
This is not the only Carroll case working its way through the courts. Trump has already asked the Supreme Court to consider his appeal in a separate $5 million defamation lawsuit that Carroll also won. The two cases share the same underlying allegations, that Trump defamed Carroll when he repeatedly denied sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
A jury sided with Carroll in 2024 on the $83 million claim. Trump has consistently denied the underlying conduct.
The stay is a procedural victory, not a substantive one, at least not yet. Trump does not have to write a check while the Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case. But the bond requirement means he is not walking away free. The court essentially told him: you can wait, but you're putting up the money to prove you're good for it.
Newsmax noted that Trump is also arguing some of his statements were protected by absolute immunity because they were made while he was president, an argument that, if accepted by the Supreme Court, could reshape the legal landscape around presidential speech and defamation liability.
That immunity argument is the one to watch. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case and rules that a sitting president's denials of personal misconduct fall within the scope of official duties, the implications would reach far beyond E. Jean Carroll. It would set a boundary that future presidents, of either party, could invoke.
Trump's legal team had previously sought a stay of the $83.3 million judgment while pursuing Supreme Court review. Monday's order granted that relief, though with strings attached.
This case fits a broader pattern of federal courts shaping, and constraining, Trump's legal exposure on multiple fronts. The president has faced a series of appellate rulings in recent months, some favorable, some not.
In a separate legal arena, Trump recently rebuked Justices Gorsuch and Barrett over a tariff-related ruling, underscoring the friction between the executive branch and the judiciary even when the bench includes appointees from the same administration.
The Carroll defamation case, however, is personal rather than policy-driven. It centers on statements Trump made about a private citizen's allegations against him. The question of whether those statements qualify as official presidential acts, and thus shield him from personal liability, is genuinely novel legal territory.
Federal appeals courts have also been active on Trump's policy agenda, including blocking his asylum ban at the southern border in a ruling that teed up yet another Supreme Court showdown. The sheer volume of cases moving through the appellate pipeline means the high court will have no shortage of Trump-related petitions to evaluate in the coming term.
The ball is now in the Supreme Court's hands. Trump's team must file a petition for review, and the justices will decide whether to grant certiorari. If they decline, the stay dissolves and the $83 million judgment, plus whatever interest has accumulated, becomes immediately enforceable.
If they take the case, the arguments over presidential immunity and the federal defendant-substitution statute could produce a landmark ruling. Either outcome carries weight.
Several questions remain unanswered. Has Trump agreed to post the additional $7.46 million bond? What is the exact federal statute his attorneys are invoking? And what timeline is the Supreme Court likely to follow in deciding whether to hear the appeal? None of these details appeared in the court's Monday order as described in available reporting.
For now, the $83 million stays on paper. Carroll's team has a bond approaching $100 million as a backstop. And the case moves to the only court that can settle the immunity question for good.
The system is working the way it's supposed to, slowly, procedurally, and with a bond to prove both sides have skin in the game. That's not a headline anyone will get excited about. But it's how the law is supposed to work.
