On Tuesday, just hours before Donald Trump ’s legal team asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and pause his sentencing today in the New York case involving hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, the president-elect and the conservative justice talked on the phone.

Some experts and Democratic lawmakers say a phone call between the president-elect and Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was ethically problematic.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said he spoke with President-elect Donald Trump by phone this week in support of a former law clerk who is seeking a job in the incoming administration – but the justice said he did not discuss Trump’s pending effort to delay his sentencing.