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

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — 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 be ambassador to France.

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, calling Charles Kushner “a great business leader, philanthropist and businessman.”

Kushner is the founder of the Kushner Companies, a real estate firm. Jared Kushner is a former senior adviser to Trump in the White House, 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 illegal campaign donations.

Prosecutors alleged that after Charles Kushner discovered that his son-in-law was cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation, he developed a scheme of revenge and intimidation.

According to prosecutors, Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his son-in-law, then arranged for the meeting in a New Jersey motel room to be recorded on a hidden camera and sent to his own sister, the man’s wife.

Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 counts, including tax evasion and witness tampering. In 2005, he was sentenced to two years in prison, the most he could have received in a plea deal, but less than what Chris Christie, then the U.S. attorney in New Jersey and later governor and Republican presidential candidate, had asked for. party

Christie blamed Jared Kushner for his firing from Trump’s transition team in 2016 and called Charles Kushner’s crimes “some of the most heinous, heinous crimes I prosecuted when I was U.S. Attorney.”

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