The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, urged Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday to recuse himself from President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to block his conviction in his money laundering case. New York After ABC News reported on a phone call between Trump and Alito on Tuesday.
“Yesterday, we learned that President-elect Trump spoke with Judge Alito just hours before Trump asked the New York Supreme Court to stay the sentence. Judge Alito dismissed this shocking private phone call and violation of judicial ethics, saying, “In a perfectly timely conversation, this administration job considered a recommendation from a former joint official,” Raskin said in a statement.
“Combined with his troubling partisan ideological activity in the past, particularly in favor of Trump, Judge Alito’s decision to engage in a personal phone call with President Trump — who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court — makes it clear that he fundamentally misunderstands the fundamental demands of judicial ethics. or, more likely, he believes himself to be above judicial ethics.”
ABC News reported that Trump’s lawyers made the call hours before Wednesday morning to file an emergency motion asking a New York judge to continue sentencing Trump in the money laundering case on Friday.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, speaks to reporters at the Capitol on Dec. 19, 2024.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP, FILE
In his statement, Raskin said: “Justice Alito has made clear his political leanings and his support for the president-elect, whether it’s a banner display for the January 6th rioters and the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement. A self-proclaimed ideological battle with the ‘left’.”
“In our democracy, Americans expect their cases to be heard by impartial judges,” he said.
Alito told ABC News that the call was about a job recommendation from one of his former officials in the new administration.
“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump about his qualifications to serve in a government position,” the justice said Wednesday. “I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon.”
Alito said he and Trump did not discuss his hush money case.
“We didn’t discuss the emergency motion that he filed today, and frankly, at the time of our conversation, I didn’t even know that motion was going to be filed,” Alito said. “We have not discussed any other matter that is pending or may come before the Supreme Court in the future or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect.”
It’s not unusual for a sitting justice to offer a job recommendation to a former secretary, but it’s rare, court analysts said, for a justice to have such a conversation directly with the president or president-elect, especially an active one. Participating in business pending before the judge.
The court is expected to consider Trump’s request by Friday morning.
The hush money case is not the only one before the Supreme Court that interests Trump. On Friday, the court will hear the latest case against the law that would have banned the video-sharing app TikTok except on January 19. The Chinese parent company sells its stake.
Trump asked the court in a motion late last month to suspend the divestment deadline to allow him to reach a “negotiated resolution” to save the application on Jan. 20.
