Alcohol regulators in New Jersey are asking Donald Trump’s golf club properties in the state to prove they deserve a renewed liquor license after the former president was found guilty on felony charges of falsifying business records.
The hearing, which is set for July 19 approximately a week after his sentencing for the hush money trial, is being requested by the New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. They found that Trump has a “direct beneficial interest” in at least two liquor licenses, the New Jersey Attorney General’s office said.
New Jersey law prohibits a person convicted of a crime “involving moral turpitude” from having a liquor license. Liquor licenses are required to be renewed every year by July.
Moral turpitude is a legal concept that broadly means deviant, immoral behavior that would be unacceptable by social standards or shock a community.
Trump National Golf Club Bedminster as well as Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck are owned and operated by the Trump Organization which is currently run by Trump’s adult sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump.
But the alcohol regulators say their review found that the former president is “the sole beneficiary of the Donald J Trump Revocable Trust” – the financial entity that allows him to retain assets and own his businesses.
Now the golf clubs must prove to the state, by a preponderance of evidence, that they’re qualified to maintain the licensures.
In May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 founds of falsifying business records for misrepresenting payments that were made to his former lawyer Michael Cohen in 2017.
Trump indicated the payments, which totaled $420,000, were part of a nonexistent legal retainer fee when they were actually reimbursements for hush money Cohen paid to an adult film star to buy her silence before the 2016 election about an alleged affair she had with Trump.
Since the New Jersey alcohol regulators are challenging the qualification of the liquor licenses, they may consider falsifying business records to be moral turpitude.
As of now, the golf clubs’ liquor licenses are held by LLCs and signed by Donald Trump Jr.
But those LLCs are listed as assets under Trump’s revocable trust, according to a 2018 document.
Until a judge makes a final ruling, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control said it would allow two golf clubs to operate with temporary licenses. Otherwise, they would have expired on June 30.