DC Hearing Set For Sept. 12 On Trump's Compliance With 'Good Character' Liquor License Rule

The Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington, DC is shown above during its 2016 renovation (Justice Integrity Project photo).

A District of Columbia regulatory board is scheduled to hear a challenge on Wednesday to President Trump’s ‘good character’ and thus to the Trump Organization’s continued ability under local law to serve liquor in the Trump International Hotel, which is based in the historic Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House.

Five District religious figures and two retired judges filed a complaint in June before the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) that Trump failed to meet the law’s requirement of “good character” that is necessary to hold a license via the Trump Organization management of the facility under its 99-year-lease. The complaint cited, among other things, claims that Trump was a “habitual liar” and accused sex offender who reportedly paid $25 million to settle claims of fraud against Trump University.

A third amended complaint this month by the group’s attorney Joshua Levy (available here) cited the recent guilty plea by Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, shown at left, to federal charges in which authorities named another person widely reported to be Trump as an “unindicted co-conspirator” with Cohen in hush money payments to cover up sex scandals.

Trump’s representatives have denied any violation and called for dismissal of the action. Regulators on ABRA are scheduled to weigh the evidence on Sept. 12 as part of a day-long hearing on other alleged violations by liquor license holders in the District.

Levy told the Huffington Post’s Mary Papenfuss for a report Sept. 7 that he expects a decision on Thursday about whether the body will forward the complaint to the District’s Attorney General Karl Racine, shown at right, for further action.

Separately in July, a federal court authorized Racine and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh to proceed in evidence gathering for their lawsuit against Trump arguing that he violates the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That clause forbids federal officeholders from receiving financial or material benefits from foreign governments or domestic government bodies.

Their lawsuit, with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) as co-counsel, notes that foreign officials and entities have rented facilities at the Trump International Hotel. Racine issued a statement following his side’s interim victory.

Our Justice Integrity Project has followed such litigation closely because it provides rare potential for accountability for widespread reports of corruption and other law-breaking by Trump, his companies and associates through the decades.

The late superlawyer Roy Cohn, Trump’s attorney and mentor, also represented leaders of at least three of New York City’s five Mafia families, as indicated by the Wikipedia collage below and by numerous books and articles about the mob’s instrumental role in Trump’s real estate and gambling holdings.

Trump biographer David Cay Johnston, left, wrote in The Making of Donald Trump, Johnston’s second biography of the tycoon, that New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement remained “willfully blind” to Trump’s many regulatory violations, unpaid bills and phony claims that he was a billionaire.

Johnston published one investigation of Trump’s finances for the Philadelphia Inquirer headlined “Bankers Say Trump May Be Worth Less than Zero.”

Johnston, who went on to report for the New York Times, closely covered Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and mob associates as an indicator of the businessman’s character. Atlantic City, crime and lax enforcement was the perfect environment, Johnston wrote, “for a Trump.”