Lawyers are reacting with shock after a white-shoe law firm officially joined the fight against an $83.3 million verdict writer E. Jean Carroll won against President Donald Trump.
Sullivan & Cromwell — whose partner Jamie McDonald was sworn in Wednesday as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the country’s most prestigious federal prosecutor’s office — filed a petition Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to overturn the verdict, Bloomberg Law reported.
McDonald had served as a personal lawyer to Trump at Sullivan & Cromwell before the president nominated him to his current post, Politico reported.
“This is shocking,” New York criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield wrote on X, reacting to the firm’s move.
“My goodness. There it is. The once-venerated white-shoe New York law firm of @sullcrom is representing an adjudicated rapist in a case brought by the victim,” attorney and Democratic congressional candidate George Conway wrote on X.
“I never thought I would live to see something like this. Wow,” Conway added.
Carroll, a former magazine advice columnist, alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. She sued after Trump denied the allegation while serving as president in 2019.
A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, awarding Carroll $5 million, CNBC reported.
A second jury awarded her $83.3 million for defamation in January 2024. Both verdicts were upheld on appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s challenge to the $5 million award last month, CNBC reported.
“I practiced law for 40 years. The most valuable thing I ever had was my credibility & good reputation with the court and fellow counsel,” New York attorney Catherine Cullen wrote on Bluesky. “Sullivan & Cromwell just tossed theirs in the trash.”
When Sullivan & Cromwell took Trump on as a client last year, firm co-chair Robert Giuffra promised partners it would stay out of the Carroll cases, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Giuffra reversed course after Trump’s personal lawyer Boris Epshteyn pushed the firm to take on the Carroll matter, prompting a revolt among some partners, the Journal reported.
Sullivan & Cromwell has become a direct pipeline to top Justice Department posts, Politico reported. McDonald’s predecessor at the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, was also a Sullivan & Cromwell alum.
The petition asks the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that Trump’s White House statements denying Carroll’s allegations were official presidential acts shielded by immunity — and to wipe out the $83.3 million judgment.
“What’s most astonishing about this is S&C doesn’t need the fees, and Trump usually stiffs his lawyers,” Conway wrote on X in a follow-up post.
The petition was filed the day before McDonald was sworn in as U.S. Attorney.
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