A US federal appeals court has rejected that Donald Trump has presidential immunity in his bid to throw out a $US83.3 million defamation verdict against him.

Trump was found guilty of damaging the reputation of the writer E Jean Carroll in 2019 when he denied her rape claim.

The US President sought to have the matter overturned, claiming that he deserved presidential immunity from Carroll’s lawsuit.

However, three judges of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan unanimously rejected Trump’s argument.

“The jury’s duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case,” the judges wrote in their opinion.

The same court on June 13 upheld Carroll’s separate $US5 million ($7.6 million) jury verdict against Trump in May 2023 for a similar defamation and for sexual assault.

Carroll, 81, a former Elle magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room.

Trump first denied her claim in June 2019, telling a reporter that Carroll was “not my type” and concocted the story to sell her memoir What Do We Need Men For?

He essentially repeated his comments in an October 2022 Truth Social post, leading to the $US5 million ($7.6 million) verdict, though the jury did not find that Trump raped Carroll.

The larger award included $US18.3 million ($27.8 million) of damages for emotional and reputational harm, and $US65 million ($99 million) of punitive damages.

In his latest appeal, Trump argued that the US Supreme Court’s July 2024 decision providing him with substantial criminal immunity shielded him from liability in Carroll’s civil case.

He also said he spoke about Carroll in 2019 in his capacity as president, and that failing to immunise him could undermine the independence of the Executive Branch.

Trump also said US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw both trials, made other mistakes, including by striking his testimony that in speaking about Carroll: “I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency.”

In June, Carroll released another memoir, Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President, about her legal battles against Trump.

-with AAP