Trump wants pardoned real estate developer Charles Kushner to become US ambassador to France

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday he intends to nominate real estate developer Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France.

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, calling Charles Kushner “a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker.”

Kushner is the founder of Kushner Companies, a real estate firm. Jared Kushner is a former White House senior adviser to Trump who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka.

The elder Kushner was pardoned by Trump in December 2020 after pleading guilty years earlier to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.

Prosecutors alleged that after Charles Kushner discovered his brother-in-law was cooperating with federal authorities in an investigation, he hatched a scheme for revenge and intimidation.

Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife, prosecutors said.

Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 counts including tax evasion and witness tampering. He was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison — the most he could receive under a plea deal, but less than what Chris Christie, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey at the time and later governor and Republican presidential candidate, had sought.

Christie has blamed Jared Kushner for his firing from Trump’s transition team in 2016, and has called Charles Kushner’s offenses “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney.”

Trump and the elder Kushner knew each other from real estate circles and their children were married in 2009.

___

Tucker reported from Newtown, Pennsylvania.