Donald 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, told the 2nd U.S. 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. 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.
She should have the sheriff show up at Mar-A-Lago and put locks on the door. That’s what they do for non-billionaires. No one is above the law forever.