The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the 82-year-old former magazine writer who accused Donald J. Trump of sexual assault, The New York Times has reported.
The inquiry comes as the Justice Department appears to be moving to take retribution against President Trump’s political opponents. Ms. Carroll won two separate but related civil judgments — one for $5 million, the other for $83.3 million — against Mr. Trump, both stemming from her accusation that the president sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s.
It’s likely that the Supreme Court will have the final word on both cases. One dispute is already before the justices. The second appears to be headed to the court in the coming months.
Here’s where things stand.
The 2019 defamation lawsuit:
In 2019, Ms. Carroll sued the president, claiming that Mr. Trump had sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room, then defamed her by denying her account of the attack in social media posts. Mr. Trump lost the case and in January 2024, a jury ordered him to pay $83.3 million in damages.
In September 2025, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan upheld the judgment. In late April, a majority of the appeals court rejected Mr. Trump’s request that the case be heard by the full court, letting the verdict stand.
What is the core legal issue?
Mr. Trump says the case should be dismissed because he is immune from liability since he was president at the time he made the comments the jury found were defamatory. As support, he is citing the July 2024 Supreme Court decision granting the president substantial immunity from criminal prosecution.
In court filings, lawyers for Mr. Trump have argued that “presidential immunity forecloses any liability here and requires the complete dismissal of all claims.” They contend that the statements implicated by Ms. Carroll’s allegations were official presidential acts and the Supreme Court has extended immunity that cannot be waived for such actions.
The federal judge who oversaw the trial determined that Mr. Trump had waived the immunity argument because he did not raise it early in the litigation.
Separately, Mr. Trump has argued that he is shielded from liability under the Westfall Act, a federal law that provides government employees immunity from personal liability for actions performed within the scope of their employment.
Where does it stand?
Mr. Trump has said in federal court filings that he plans to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case but he has not yet filed a petition to the court. In a motion filed with the appeals court on May 5, lawyers for Mr. Trump laid out the two central legal claims they planned to raise.
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They did not give a date that they planned to appeal. Under Supreme Court rules, parties have 90 days from a final judgment to seek review by the Supreme Court, giving Mr. Trump until this summer to file his petition.
The 2022 defamation and battery lawsuit:
In 2022, Ms. Carroll brought another lawsuit after New York enacted the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year window for people to bring claims of sexual assault that occurred when they were adults, no matter how long ago the abuse happened.
A jury in that case found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in May 2023 and awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million.
In December 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the verdict.
What is the core legal issue?
The core legal issue is whether the trial judge improperly admitted what Mr. Trump’s lawyers have called “highly inflammatory” evidence at trial, by allowing the jury to hear about allegations against Mr. Trump from women other than Ms. Carroll.
Lawyers for the president have asserted in court filings that the trial judge in this case violated federal evidentiary rules and had “erroneously allowed testimony about multiple decades-old, unverified and unrelated allegations to be presented to the jury.” They said the judge had erred by allowing testimony from two other women who had also accused Mr. Trump of sexual abuse and allowing the jury to hear the “Access Hollywood” tape, a recording in which Mr. Trump can be heard bragging about grabbing women’s genitals.
Where does it stand?
Mr. Trump asked the Supreme Court in November to step in and overturn the judgment against him. In response, lawyers for Ms. Carroll urged the court to reject the case, asserting that Mr. Trump had “failed to show that any error affected his substantial rights.”
The court has not yet announced whether it will hear the case. The justices discuss whether to accept or reject potential cases during their private conference meetings. Four of the nine justices must agree for the court to accept a case. Since February, Mr. Trump’s petition has been listed to be discussed at the conference and then rescheduled a dozen times. The court has given no reasons for this repeated delay.
The number of delays is unusual, but the lack of clarity is not. The justices do not explain why they reschedule cases.
