Trump wants to pardon real estate developer in New Jersey as US ambassador

President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday he plans to nominate real estate developer Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, as ambassador to France.

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post in which he called Charles Kushner “a great business leader, philanthropist and dealmaker.”

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

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

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

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

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Kushner ultimately pleaded guilty to 18 counts, including tax evasion and witness tampering.

He was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison – the maximum he could receive under a plea deal, but less than what Chris Christie, then the U.S. attorney for New Jersey 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 called Charles Kushner’s crimes “one of the most heinous and heinous crimes I have prosecuted as U.S. attorney.”

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

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