{"id":427211,"date":"2024-12-01T13:50:25","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T13:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=427211"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Trump-taps-Charles-Kushner-father-of-his-son-in-law-as-envoy-to-France","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Trump-taps-Charles-Kushner-father-of-his-son-in-law-as-envoy-to-France\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump taps Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law, as envoy to France"},"content":{"rendered":"

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the US ambassador to France, in the latest of several controversial picks.<\/p>\n

Kushner “is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests,” Trump said on his Truth Social website, adding that Jared “worked closely with me in the White House.”<\/p>\n

The choice is in keeping with Trump’s pattern, so far, of selecting people, often wealthy, who are close to his family or of proven loyalty. Kushner is a multimillionaire real estate executive and former attorney; his son was a senior adviser during Trump’s first term.<\/p>\n

Trump did not mention, however, that the elder Kushner once served jail time — a two-year sentence, most of it served in a federal prison.<\/p>\n

Kushner, who is now 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions.<\/p>\n

The case, which was prosecuted by then US attorney Chris Christie, included sordid details, to which Kushner admitted: that he had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a man cooperating in a campaign finance inquiry, and then videotaped the encounter and sent it to the man’s wife, Kushner’s sister, to dissuade her from testifying against him.<\/p>\n

Christie, who worked on Trump’s first presidential transition team and then opposed him in this year’s Republican primary contests, later said Kushner had committed a “loathsome” and “disgusting crime.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2020, Trump issued a pardon to Kushner, whose conviction had resulted in him being disbarred in three states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nominees for key ambassadorships are often business associates of a president-elect, or major political donors. But it is rare, if not unprecedented, to name a convicted felon.<\/p>\n

The first two men to fill the prestigious Paris post were famed inventor and statesman Benjamin Franklin and a future president, Thomas Jefferson.<\/p>\n

If confirmed, Kushner would succeed Denise Bauer, a former ambassador to Belgium who was a major Democratic fundraiser and donor.<\/p>\n

md\/bbk\/md<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 2004, Kushner, now 70, pleaded guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions<\/p>\n

-Michael M. Santiago
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President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}