Associate Justice Samuel Alito of the United States Supreme Court poses for a formal portrait in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, on October 7, 2022.
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Justice Samuel Alito confirmed Wednesday that he received a call from Donald Trump the day before the president-elect petitioned the Supreme Court. Stop impending sentencingbut insisted the case was not discussed.
Alito said in a statement that they spoke Tuesday afternoon after one of his former law clerks, William Levy, “requested that I take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications for office in the administration.”
“I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, who called me yesterday afternoon,” Alito said in a statement. abc news. “We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and in fact, at the time we spoke I was not even aware that such an application would be filed.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump Ask the Supreme Court Legal proceedings in the hush-money case are halted ahead of a sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday.
In the filing, the president-elect’s lawyers argued that Trump was already protected by presidential immunity and that the high court should block the New York proceedings to “prevent grave injustice and harm to the presidential institutions and the operations of the president.” “
The Supreme Court has yet to respond to Trump’s request.
New York judge files emergency filing Monday after rejecting Trump’s request refuse to block Sentencing. Around noon Tuesday, a New York appeals court judge also rejected Trump’s bid.
Alito said he and Trump “did not discuss any other matters pending or that may come before the Supreme Court in the future, nor any past Supreme Court decisions involving the president-elect.”
A spokesman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.
Alito came under scrutiny last year after flying an inverted American flag outside his home in Virginia. this inverted flag Previously, some Trump supporters mistakenly believed that the 2020 election was stolen and used it as a sign of protest.
Alito said at the time that he had “nothing to do with the flying of that flag” and noted in a letter to members of Congress that as soon as he saw the flag, he asked his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, to remove it. Remove.
After the incident, several Democratic members of Congress urged Alito to recuse himself from cases involving Trump. Alito refused
