Convicted Felon and Ambassador
Naming Charles Kushner as the U.S. ambassador to France is outright troubling.
The French media is broadcasting U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner’s accusation that Paris is failing to tackle antisemitism. Let’s revisit our December 1, 2024, article, which exposes Kushner’s true character and checkered past, revealing why he’s hardly suited to deliver sanctimonious lectures. Looking back, Donald Trump’s choice of Kushner as his envoy to Paris is a misstep, prioritizing family ties over credibility in a role demanding finesse and savoir-vivre.
We didn’t see this one coming. Donald Trump has just appointed Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, husband of his daughter Ivanka, as the Ambassador to France.
In the U.S., landing an ambassadorship often hinges on political loyalty rather than merit. These roles, more ceremonial than substantive, typically go to deep-pocketed donors or high-level campaign operatives, not career diplomats. Take Denise Campbell, the current U.S. Ambassador to France: far from the seasoned diplomat touted by the French media, she’s a San Francisco socialite whose primary credentials are raising millions for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and leading Women for Biden in 2020.
Charles Kushner, then a Democratic Party backer, was slapped with a $509,800 fine in 2004 by the Federal Election Commission for funneling funds illegally into campaigns. By 2005, the New Jersey’s district U.S. Attorney brought him to his knees, securing a guilty plea on 18 counts, including a web of illicit campaign donations to Democrats, tax fraud, and a sordid witness-tampering scheme. His sentence ? A mere 24-month stint in the slammer—light for the crimes, but still a fall from grace. Kushner served 14 months in Alabama’s Montgomery federal penitentiary before completing his sentence in a New Jersey halfway house.
Charles Kushner is a real nice guy. He hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities, secretly filmed the encounter, and sent the footage to his wife—his own sister. This act, reminiscent of Epstein’s modus operandi, led to his conviction for witness tampering
Back then, the federal prosecutor who brought Charles Kushner to justice was Chris Christie, a rising GOP star who later elected New Jersey’s governor in 2009 and twice sought the Republican presidential nomination. After losing to Donald Trump in the 2016 primary, Christie endorsed him but gained no role in Trump’s transition team or administration—hardly surprising, given he had prosecuted the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. After Charles Kushner’s 2005 sentencing, Christie didn’t hold back: 'The court knocked Mr. Kushner off his pedestal. He genuinely believed his vast wealth, power, and influence made him above the law”.
Chris Christie misjudged Charles Kushner’s resilience. Leveraging his son Jared’s marriage to Ivanka Trump, Kushner secured a full presidential pardon in December 2020, just as Trump was exiting the White House. Such last-minute pardons are a time-honored U.S. tradition, with Bill Clinton setting the high-water mark, allegedly to bolster his foundation’s coffers.
Update as of August 25, 2025: The Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative are now under U.S. Justice Department scrutiny, due to Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and suspicions of “pay for play”.
Beyond exposing Trump’s thinly veiled contempt for Emmanuel Macron and France—his rhetoric about “strengthening ties with our oldest ally” dripping with sarcasm—Kushner’s appointment sparks serious concern about U.S. diplomatic credibility in France.
Charles Kushner, a convicted felon branded as corrupt, heads a family infamous for its shady tactics. When his father was behind bars, Jared Kushner took the reins of the family’s real estate empire and made a catastrophic bet in 2007, sinking $1.8 billion—mostly borrowed—into 666 Fifth Avenue, the priciest property ever purchased in the U.S. at the time. The deal imploded, forcing Jared to offload half the building at a crushing loss while scrambling to court foreign investors to stay afloat.
As Donald Trump’s advisor during his first term, Jared wormed his way into the high-stakes Abraham Accords negotiations. He became a fierce advocate for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), a figure reviled in the U.S. after orchestrating the brutal 2018 murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate. Ironically, MBS had silenced Khashoggi as a journalist in 2016 for his outspoken criticism of Trump.
Barely months after exiting the White House, Jared Kushner’s founded an investment fund, Affinity Partners, and landed a staggering $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to channel investments into American and Israeli ventures. The fund’s advisors sounded alarms, warning that the deal saddled Saudi Arabia with all the risk, was burdened by exorbitant management fees, flimsy due diligence, and Kushner’s glaring lack of experience, not to mention the reputational risks stemming from his days as Trump’s advisor. Yet, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman brushed these red flags aside. Since 2021, records show Affinity Partners has raked in a hefty $157 million in management fees on $2.5 billion in assets under management, while delivering zero dividends to its investors—a windfall for Kushner with no returns for his backers.
In February 2024, didn’t Jared Kushner gleefully tout Gaza’s beachfront real estate as a golden opportunity? With the Middle East’s conflicts intensifying and the U.S. standing firmly behind Israel—a stance set to harden under Trump’s second term—Saudi Arabia’s condemnation of Israel’s Gaza operations as genocidal casts a shadow over Jared’s ventures. His Affinity Partners fund, fattened by a $2 billion Saudi investment, risks dragging down the Trump administration into a superfluous controversy, as MBS thus wields significant influence over Trump’s son-in-law. Unless, of course, Riyadh is tempted with juicy concessions.
Let’s entertain a darker thought: could Paris refusal to honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu be tied to Charles Kushner’s appointment as ambassador to France, a nomination Emmanuel Macron surely was privy to in advance?
One can only hope Congress will muster the backbone to block Charles Kushner’s confirmation as U.S. Ambassador to France—or, better yet, that Donald Trump scraps the nomination himself. Should Kushner slip through, France must be bold enough to reject his diplomatic credentials.
Why? Because if Jared Kushner tags along behind his father, expect a spree of backroom deals from Paris to the Côte d’Azur, with the 2030 Winter Olympics in the Alps as a glittering prize. But can France’s elite, mired in servility, summon such courage? The real issue isn’t Trump himself but the rot within his inner circle, led by the Kushners, whose track record of shady deals threatens to poison ties with America’s “oldest and greatest” ally.
