- Trump still faces potential revocation of his NJ liquor licenses due to his hush-money conviction.
- His lawyers now want the federal courts to take control of his state appeal of the hush-money case.
- NJ officials tell BI that a license revocation hearing remains pending, though no date is set.
Lawyers for President Trump took the unusual step this week of asking a federal appellate court in Manhattan to take control of the state appeal of his New York hush-money conviction.
The hush-money case is “extraordinary” and relied on now-exempt official, presidential acts to reach a guilty verdict, Trump’s lawyers wrote in asking that the state appeal be moved to the federal court system.
US law allows such a state-to-federal transfer, but almost only in cases that are pretrial. For judges to approve, a defendant must invoke a federal defense such as presidential immunity, and must establish that the alleged criminal conduct arose from official federal acts, his lawyers argued in a 40-page brief.
“This prosecution of President Trump, which never should have been brought, checks both boxes,” they wrote.
The brief was filed Monday with the intermediate-level Second Circuit Court of Appeals. It was signed by attorney Robert J. Giuffra, Jr.
In the 10 months since his conviction, Trump has fought hard in no fewer than four courts to clear his criminal record.
So long as the conviction remains on his record, at least two of Trump’s three New Jersey liquor licenses — for his golf courses at the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, remain in jeopardy.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson with the New Jersey attorney general’s office told Business Insider that revocation hearings on those golf club licenses remain pending, though no date has been set.
New Jersey law requires revocation if someone who holds or is the primary beneficiary of a liquor license has a felony conviction.
Although the three clubs’ liquor licenses are in Donald Trump, Jr.’s, name, the elder Trump remains the primary financial beneficiary of the licenses through the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, the spokesperson said.
The Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs are selling liquor under provisional licenses; the license for Trump’s third New Jersey club, the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia in Pine Hill, expires in June.
A Manhattan jury in May convicted Trump of 34 felony counts.
The jury found that throughout 2017, his first year in office, Trump conspired with his top executives to falsify Trump Organization records to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush-money payment that had silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels 11 days before the 2016 election.
Monday’s brief came in response to an older and far more narrow question — whether a federal judge erred in July 2023 when he rejected one of Trump’s pre-trial efforts to move the case to federal court.
Trump had argued in that case that the hush-money matter “involves important federal questions” because he was president at the time prosecutors say the records were falsified.
US District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein disagreed, sending it back to state court for trial. Hellerstein found that Trump failed to demonstrate that the conduct he was actually charged with — falsifying business records to hide a hush-money payment — related to any official acts as president.
Prosecutors with the office of District Attorney Alvin Bragg have yet to respond to Monday’s brief, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In September they filed a brief arguing that Trump’s efforts to move the case have come too late. In January they filed notice that they are willing to appear in court and participate in oral arguments before the appellate panel.
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