Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke with President-elect Donald Trump about a former law clerk the day before Trump went to the high court in a push to delay the sentencing in his New York hush-money case.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the US Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in the hush money case, a highly unusual request that relies in part on the court’s decision last year to grant him broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

The justice said that the call was a routine job reference for one of his former clerks and that the request to stay the president-elect’s sentencing did not come up.