![\"donald-trump-thumbs-up-happy\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Donald-Trump-thumbs-up-happy-300x193.png\")
<\/p>\n(Photo by Ali Shaker\/VOA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Donald Trump just asked the Supreme Court to intervene in his New York state criminal case and extend its newly expanded presidential immunity just a little further to cover illegally concealing a hush money scheme to pay off an adult film star before he ever became president. A matter of hours before that case \u2014 number 666 because you cannot make this stuff up<\/a> \u2014 arrived at the Court, Trump had a phone conversation with Justice Sam Alito.<\/p>\n You know, just the kind of light-hearted catch-up you have with your bros right before asking them to suspend the criminal code for you.<\/p>\n In his remarks about the call, Alito puts a lot of weight on the fact that it took place before Trump filed his application. Alito seems to think this means he had no way of predicting a potential conflict when all it really seems to say is \u201cTrump decided this was worth filing after checking in on Alito.\u201d<\/p>\n While the emergency filing over the NY case hadn\u2019t hit the docket yet, Trump already had business before the Court with his half-baked effort to halt the planned TikTok ban from going into effect, presumably so he can try to exact some sort of personal vig from the company. But since Alito doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s a problem to go on a vacation with litigants with business before him<\/a>, a telephone call with a litigant certainly wouldn\u2019t raise any flags for him.<\/p>\n And we know his thoughts on flags.<\/p>\n \u201cWilliam 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,\u201d Justice Alito told ABC News. \u201cI agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n On the one hand, an employer checking references is a reasonably innocuous explanation. On the other hand, this might be the least believable excuse Alito could have cooked up.<\/p>\n Levi almost certainly came up during the call. He might\u2019ve even been the subject superficially the whole time. But it\u2019s a special kind of gullible to believe this call wasn\u2019t really about Trump\u2019s legal interests. \u201cNo one is questioning Levi\u2019s credentials, which are as good as can be,\u201d says Fix the Court\u2019s Gabe Roth. \u201cThe 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.\u201d It\u2019s also unnecessary when Alito could\u2019ve responded to the ethically fraught request with a letter explaining why he couldn\u2019t take the call but reaffirming his faith in his former clerk.<\/p>\n The call makes even less sense when you consider that Trump\u2019s barely vetting his cabinet secretaries. Trump didn\u2019t feel the need to check Matt Gaetz\u2019s public Venmo feed but feels the need to personally check references on whatever middling job he\u2019s giving Bill Barr\u2019s former chief of staff? Industrial-grade credulity cannot hold up to this kind of strain.<\/p>\n Alito claims the conversation never strayed into Trump\u2019s upcoming Supreme Court cases. There\u2019s no record of what transpired on the call, but we should totally take him at his word. It\u2019s not like he said in 2023 that he barely knew Paul Singer, the billionaire litigant giving him a free private plane trip, even though back in 2009, ABOVE THE LAW contemporaneously reported<\/a> on an event where Alito was introduced by his personal friend\u2026 Paul Singer. I mean, a guy who tried to mislead the public on such an easily checked matter like that would be a thoroughly unreliable narrator about his own ethical issues!<\/p>\n Trump wanted to take Alito\u2019s temperature \u2014 directly or indirectly \u2014 and found a justice more than willing to comply with this request. Alito should recuse himself from Trump\u2019s case given this revelation about his stunning lack of judgment. But he won\u2019t because while the Trump v. United States<\/em> opinion is reported as a 6-3 supermajority providing necessary slack for Alito to sit out and still deliver for \u201cthe Boss,\u201d it\u2019s not so simple. Trump\u2019s attack on the New York criminal case arises \u2014 in part \u2014 from the section of the Trump<\/em> opinion suggesting unofficial acts can earn immunity if any of the evidence involves an official act and Trump\u2019s arguing that testimony from White House aides about what he did after<\/em> the fact with the crime that took place before<\/em> becoming president should nix the whole case. And on that<\/em> issue, Amy Coney Barrett refused to hop aboard, making it much closer to a 5-4 question.<\/p>\n If the Chief Justice wants the public to regain faith in the legitimacy of the courts, this might be a good place to start. Even assuming an entirely innocent phone call this time \u2014 a big ask \u2014 if Alito hears this case, it establishes a precedent for Trump to have private chit-chats with the justices with no consequences. The risk of mischief is extraordinary.<\/p>\n This is where that whole \u201cavoid the mere appearance of impropriety\u201d thing would come into play. Except this Court reads that classic maxim a little differently these days: avoid the mere appearance<\/em> of impropriety.<\/p>\n [UPDATE<\/strong>: I hastily wrote \u201cPeter\u201d Singer in the first draft, apparently confusing billionaire Paul Singer with bioethicist and moral philosopher Peter Singer which probably says something but I\u2019m not sure what it is.]<\/p>\n Trump speaks with Justice Alito amid push to halt criminal sentencing<\/a> [ABC News]<\/p>\n Earlier<\/strong>: Sam Alito Laments It\u2019s Getting So You Can\u2019t Take All-Expense Paid Luxury Vacations Funded By Billionaires Anymore<\/a> \t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n
Donald Trump Demands SCOTUS Do Him A Favor Though<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Headshot\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Headshot-300x200.jpg\")
Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n