Samuel Alito spoke to Trump hours before sentencing delay request
"Pair discussed credentials of potential Trump cabinet pick shortly ahead of push to postpone hush-money hearing
The conservative US supreme court justice Samuel Alito spoke to Donald Trump hours before the president-elect’s lawyers asked the court to delay Friday’s sentencing hearing in his felony conviction for falsifying business records.
The pair talked on the phone to discuss the credentials of one of Alito’s former law clerks, who has been recommended for a job in Trump’s incoming administration.
“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,” Alito told ABC News, which broke the story.
“I agreed to discuss this matter with president-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday [Wednesday] afternoon.”
Alito said they did not discuss the sentencing application or any other past or pending matter coming before the court that might involve Trump.
But advocacy groups said the conversation revived ongoing ethics concerns surrounding several court justices, including Alito himself. Routine job references for a prospective administration officials are usually dealt with by lower-level aides, rather than the president himself.
“The call was merely an excuse for Trump to speak with one of the nine people determining the fate of his hush money sentencing in the coming days and who will review many more Trump-related issues over the next four years,” Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, an advocacy group, told the New York Times.
“Typically, Trump and Alito are better at hiding their ethics issues, at least for a few months or sometimes longer. But with the supreme court green lighting near-absolute presidential immunity last year, and with Congress refusing to pass enforceable ethics for the justices, it appears there’s no reason to even try.”
Trump’s lawyers have asked the court to delay a sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday – 10 days before his inauguration – at a court in New York over Trump’s 34 felony convictionsfor falsifying documents in relation to hush money paid to the adult actor Stormy Daniels shortly before his 2016 election victory.
The conviction could carry a four-year jail sentence, although the judge, Juan Merchan, has indicated that he is likely to give Trump an unconditional discharge – in effect confirming his status as a convicted felon – in view of his presidential transition efforts and last July’s supreme court ruling granting him broad immunity for acts carried out in his role as president.
Alito previously faced calls, which he rejected, to recuse himself from cases involving Trump, over the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The demands followed disclosures that a US flag was flown upside down – a symbol used by pro-Trump protesters in the January 6 breach – at Alito’s Virginia home, while a so-called “Appeal to Heaven” flag, also used by Trump supporters, was displayed at his holiday home in New Jersey."
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