Alito confirms call with Trump, says emergency order not discussed
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday confirmed a call with President-elect Trump, and he said they did not discuss an emergency application from Trump to block his upcoming sentencing in his New York hush money case.
“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 said in a statement.
“I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon,” Alito added. “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.”
The president-elect’s recent emergency application request asks the Supreme Court to halt the hush money prosecution from moving forward until his appeals implicating presidential immunity are resolved. Judge Juan Merchan has set Trump’s sentencing for the hush money case for Friday.
“President Trump is currently engaged in the most crucial and sensitive tasks of preparing to assume the Executive Power in less than two weeks, all of which are essential to the United States’ national security and vital interests,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
The first outlet to report the Trump and Alito call was ABC News.
Alito also said in his statement that during his call with the president-elect, there was no talk of “any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions” of which Trump is a part.
In July, Alito was one of the six members of the Supreme Court involved in a ruling that determined that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution, handing a victory to Trump.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump transition team, Levi, the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York State Unified Court System’s Office of Public Information for comment.