Trump's New Jersey liquor-license hearing is delayed in latest ripple-effect benefit from SCOTUS immunity opinion
- Donald Trump's felony status has jeopardized his three golf-club liquor licenses in New Jersey.
- A state hearing on his licenses in Bedminster and Colts Neck, set for Friday, has been delayed.
The drinks will keep flowing at former President Donald Trump's New Jersey golf courses, at least for now, in the latest ripple-effect benefit from this month's Supreme Court presidential-immunity opinion.
Friday's hearing over whether to revoke the liquor licenses for Trump National Golf Club Bedminster and Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck has been delayed until at least September, the New Jersey attorney general's office announced Thursday.
The hearing is being pushed back because of the delay in Trump's sentencing in his hush-money case, officials said. Under New Jersey law, it's only after sentencing that a liquor license can be revoked for a felony conviction.
A new date for the liquor-license-revocation hearing has not yet been set, according to officials with the state attorney general's office, which runs the state's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
A spokesperson said Friday's now canceled hearing had been timed to take place a week after Trump's hush-money sentencing, originally set for July 11.
But Trump's sentencing is now September 18, a delay that gives his lawyers and Manhattan prosecutors time to fight over what impact, if any, the Supreme Court's presidential-immunity opinion has on the criminal case.
Trump's side is trying to get the hush-money case tossed in its entirety.
"With the sentencing date moved to September, ABC will evaluate the impact on its hearing schedule and act accordingly," a spokesperson for the attorney general's office said.
Nothing else about "ABC's process" has changed, the spokesperson added, signaling that the efforts to challenge Trump's licenses had not ended.
State officials said on June 28 that Trump's new felony status barred him from profiting from the two licenses, which were due for renewal on June 30.
The bars at the Bedminster and Colts Neck clubs will remain open under an interim permit pending the yet-scheduled hearing, at which Trump's side will bear the burden of proof in demonstrating that he remains qualified to benefit from a liquor license.
The liquor license at Trump's third New Jersey course, Trump National Philadelphia — 45 minutes outside that city in Pine Hill — was renewed by that borough on June 3, just four days after his guilty verdict on 34 business-falsification counts.
As Business Insider revealed last month, Trump's three Jersey liquor licenses are in his eldest son's name. Trump said in a press statement that none of the liquor licenses at his properties were in his own name.
But the office of New Jersey's attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, found last month that the former president was the beneficiary of the licenses.
"A review by ABC indicates that Mr. Trump maintains a direct beneficial interest in the three liquor licenses through the receipt of revenues and profits from them, as the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust," a press statement said last month.
The Supreme Court's immunity opinion is barely two weeks old but has already paid high dividends to Trump, delaying his Washington, DC, insurrection case, while invalidating his Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case in Florida.
A Wednesday deadline has been set for Manhattan prosecutors to respond to Trump's arguments that presidential immunity voids both his hush-money conviction and the indictment itself.