A federal appeals court this week agreed President Trump can continue holding off paying writer E. Jean Carroll for her $83.3 million defamation judgment until the Supreme Court decides if it will get involved.
Trump is heading to the justices after the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected his presidential immunity claims and other efforts to avoid paying the sum late last month.
Carroll, who insists Trump’s appeals are meritless, did not object to the delay as long as the president increases his bond by $7.5 million to account for additional interest he’ll owe, if unsuccessful.
The 2nd Circuit agreed in a brief order issued Monday.
“We are pleased that the Second Circuit conditioned the stay on President Trump posting a bond of nearly $100 million — increasing the $91,630,000 bond he originally posted by another $7,462,492.74 to account for the accruing post-judgment interest,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said in a statement.
Carroll has taken Trump to civil trial twice after publicly accusing him during his first White House term of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. The president denies her claims and wants the Supreme Court to toss both verdicts.
The first jury found Trump liable of sexually abusing Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million. That verdict also found he later defamed the writer in a 2022 statement.
The recent appeals concern the second trial. A separate jury ordered Trump to cough up $83.3 million for defaming Carroll in denying her story when she first came forward.
Since that trial focused on comments Trump made while serving as president, he has raised a presidential immunity defense. He’s also argued the federal government should be allowed to step in for him and be the one on the hook for any damages.
So far, Trump has not emerged successful. The full 2nd Circuit bench late last month declined to overrule panel decisions rejecting Trump’s claims.
It leaves the Supreme Court as his only remaining pathway. The justices choose what cases they hear and turn away the vast majority.
Trump’s appeal of the first trial has been pending with the nation’s highest court for months. At one point, the justices were scheduled to mull taking it up at a closed-door conference in February, according to the court’s docket. The court has repeatedly delayed consideration ever since.
Trump’s expected Supreme Court petition appealing the second verdict will now add to it.
Updated at 11:48 a.m. EDT
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