U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke with President-elect Donald Trump this week, just hours before Trump’s attorneys asked the court to delay sentencing Friday in his New York hush money case.
Alito first confirmed that the pair spoke by phone in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday, saying he had taken a call from the president-elect to provide a job reference for a former law clerk.
“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” the justice told the news network. “I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon.”
Alito said he did not talk to Trump about the emergency filing to call off sentencing on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to a porn actor before the 2016 election.
“Indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed,” Alito said. “We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect.”
Both ABC News and The New York Times note it is not unusual for justices to serve as references for former clerks. But it is also unprecedented for a president-elect to have personal legal proceedings before the court.
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New York Judge Juan Merchan has refused to again postpone the sentencing hearing after the May 31 verdict. The hearing would be unprecedented for a former president or president-elect, and Merchan has ordered Trump to appear in person or via video conference while a sentence is handed down.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing despite the conviction, and his attorneys have aggressively moved to stop the sentencing, which would be just 10 days before his inauguration. Those efforts so far have failed, and an appeals court refused to step in earlier this month.
Merchan has indicated he will not impose any jail time or significant penalties against Trump, instead calling a likely unconditional discharge the most “viable solution.” But he wrote in a recent ruling that it was in the interest of justice to conclude the sentencing hearing to bring “finality to this matter.”