President Donald Trump's lawyer, hoping for an eventual Supreme Court victory, is asking a federal appeals court in New York to temporarily block a longtime columnist from collecting an $83 million defamation award.

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.

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    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.

    Just a bonkers legal system we have.