Donald Trump Taps Charles Kushner, Dad of Jared, As The Incoming Ambassador To France

President-elect Donald Trump tapped his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s dad, Charles Kushner, as the incoming ambassador to France on Saturday—a key role in managing the fraught relationship between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Kushner, an infamous figure in New Jersey, is a wealthy real estate executive who was convicted and imprisoned in 2005 after pleading guilty to 16 federal counts of filing false tax returns, one count of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and one count of retaliating against a cooperating witness and was later pardoned by Trump in the final days of his first term.

“He is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site. “Together, we will strengthen America’s partnership with France, our oldest Ally, & one of our greatest!”

Kushner, 70, had a firm hold in real estate by the early 2000s before running into legal troubles and pleading guilty in 2004. As a part of his plea at the time, he admitted to targeting his brother-in-law, William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors in their case against the elder Kushner. The plot included Kushner hiring a sex worker to lure Schulder into a motel room, have sex with him, and film it on a hidden camera. That tape would later be sent to Schulder’s wife, Kushner’s sister, as an intimidation stunt.

Alas, Kushner’s scheme didn’t end up working and he was sentenced to two years in prison, but was released earlier in 2006.

He found vindication, though, with Trump’s pardon over a decade later.

Trump granted Kushner clemency “as part of a wave of 26 pardons he issued with roughly a month left in his first term, along with other close associates including Paul Manafort, his 2016 campaign chairman, and Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime ally and informal adviser,” the New York Times reports in their Saturday write-up of Trump’s pick. Both Jared and Charles Kushner, according to reporting from the Times, played a key role in who Trump considered clemency for.

Prosecuting Kushner’s initial case was no other than Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was then a US attorney. Christie—who has become a vocal critic of Trump—recalled Kushner’s misconduct as “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted…and I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey” during a 2019 interview with PBS.

Kushner has long defended his son, and the two are reportedly close as Jared, for years, used a wallet that his dad made him while incarcerated. (Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin detailed some of the pair’s dependence here.)

During Kushner’s time in The White House, he influenced policy abroad and at home—from relations with China and the Middle East to the Trump administration’s COVID response. A tenure that was also mired in controversy.

Charles, in his first interview after his son entered the White House, was asked about one of these controversies, involving an investigation into some handlings by the Kushner family business. He told The Washington Post that he was “not at all concerned” about the investigation and that those probing could “knock themselves out for the next 10 years reading those papers as far as I’m concerned.”

He also took the time to laude his son and how he’s handled the task of growing up with generational wealth.

“We didn’t raise our children as typical children,” he said. “They were taught if you have wealth, it is not something to be spoiled about, it is a lot of responsibility, which requires you to do more, better than if you didn’t have the money. So my children, they are more mature than their years and they were raised that way.”

Jared Kushner’s dealings since Trump left office have also been called into question, such as the large sum of money, $2 billion, that he received from the Saudi Public Investment Fund for his business ventures.

Following the 2020 election, Kusher and wife Ivanka Trump relocated to Miami, took a step back from roles in government, and are reportedly not poised to join the president-elect’s future cabinet. Yet, it’s unclear how much influence the couple may still have, as the younger Kushner’s continued ties to the Middle East could come into play, according to reporting from CNN last month.

In what has ended up being a huge weekend for fathers-in-law, the president-elect announced on Sunday that Massad Boulos—the dad of Tiffany Trump’s husband, Michael Boulos—would serve as his Middle East and Arab world adviser.