Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Rabbis Say Trump Hotel Should Lose Liquor License Over ‘Good Character’ Law

Two Washington, D.C. rabbis have filed a complaint claiming that the local government should revoke the liquor license of the Trump International Hotel because President Trump is not a person of “good character,” which the law requires.

The complaint, which was filed to the district’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board last month, claims that Trump fails the “good character” test because he has “a long history of telling lies,” has been accused of sexual assault by multiple women, has repeatedly “engaged in racism,” and has repeatedly broken the law and been known to associate with criminals.

It also argues that Trump is the “true and actual owner” of the property because he failed to properly divest from his businesses upon assuming office in January 2017.

The petition was filed by two retired judges and five local clergy members, including Rabbi Aaron Potek of the young adult outreach group Gather DC and Rabbi Jack Moline, the president of the Interfaith Alliance who formerly ran the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Local attorneys who specialize in liquor licensing told Washingtonian magazine that they were not aware of a case when the clause was invoked solely based on the owner’s character. The clause is usually invoked when an operator has a history of violations specific to the industry, like serving alcohol to minors or failing to quell violence in their facilities.

A Trump Organization spokesperson told The Washington Post that the complaint was “patently frivolous and an obvious attempt to harass and to distort the law for political gain.” But the chair of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board said on Friday that the case is currently pending.

The hotel, which is only blocks from the White House, has frequently been the subject of ethics complaints due to its popularity with foreign dignitaries and American conservative political activists and advocates.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.