WASHINGTON — Justice Samuel Alito confirmed Wednesday that he took a phone call from Donald Trump one day before the president-elect asked the Supreme Court to halt his upcoming sentencing, but insisted that the case was not discussed.
Alito said in a statement that they spoke Tuesday afternoon after one of his former law clerks, William Levi, “asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position.”
“I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon,” Alito said in the statement, which was first reported by ABC News. “We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump asked the Supreme Court to halt legal proceedings in his hush money case ahead of his sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for Friday.
In the filing, the president-elect’s lawyers argued that Trump is already protected by presidential immunity, and that the high court should block the New York proceedings in order “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.”
Alito said that he and Trump “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.”
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
Alito came under scrutiny last year after an upside-down American flag flew outside of his Virginia home. The symbol of the upside-down flag was previously adopted as a protest symbol by some Trump supporters who falsely believed the 2020 election was stolen.
Alito said at the time that he “had nothing whatsoever to do with the flying of that flag,” noting in a letter to members of Congress that as soon as he saw the flag, he asked his wife Martha-Ann Alito to take it down, “but for several days, she refused.”
After the incident, several congressional Democrats urged Alito to recuse himself from cases involving Trump. Alito declined.
