The Situation: Charlie in Paris

Kushner, a real estate developer whose son Jared is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison after pleading guilty to making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, witness tampering, and tax evasion involving $6 million in political contributions and gifts mischaracterized as business expenses.
Kushner admitted to devising a plan to retaliate against his sister, who had been a cooperating witness in the case, and her husband by hiring a sex worker to “seduce the husband and covertly filming them having sex” and then having the footage sent to his sister, according to a Justice Department statement in 2005.

President Trump pardoned Kushner back in 2020, and now he’s off to Paris—where the U.S. ambassador has pretty sweet digs, by the way—with the Senate’s blessing.

Pardonnez-moi, but I think France deserves better from the United States than a convicted felon as ambassador, pardon or not. And I think our contrition should begin with a fuller account than the Washington Post chose to give about exactly whom we are sending as our nation’s top representative in Paris.

The following account is adapted from the 18-count criminal information to which Kushner pled guilty on Aug. 18, 2004. I have changed words here and there to make it a bit more readable. I have left some details out. But the paragraphs that follow are mostly verbatim from the official document.

Kushner was the chairman of Kushner Companies, a business entity and trade-name which controlled over one-hundred residential, office, hotel, and commercial real-estate partnerships, limited liability corporations and management companies, located primarily in the New Jersey/Tri-State Area.

The goal of his scheme was that Kushner would assist in the preparation of false partnership tax returns in order to evade the paying of taxes by the partners of the Kushner Real-Estate Partnerships to the IRS for the true net income of the company through the overstatement of deductible business expenses and other means, and thereby cause the understatement of income reported by the company’s partners. Toward that end, he oversaw the creation of financial reports which, among other things, improperly characterized charitable contributions as current business expenses. Kushner caused the preparation of tax returns for the company into which he caused the incorporation of these fraudulent and mischaracterized expenses.

In February 2003, a grand jury began investigating this activity, focusing on, among other things, Kushner’s control of over one-hundred real estate partnerships which he and various associates had allegedly used to defeat federal tax laws and circumvent federal campaign contribution limits. In March 2003, Kushner became aware of the investigation and that his sister was providing information to investigating law enforcement authorities in connection with it. That August, Kushner hired a private investigator and his associate to arrange for and videotape the seduction of his brother-in-law by an escort/call girl and to videotape their sexual liaison. On December 5, 2003, the private investigator, the associate, and the escort successfully completed the plan to seduce and videotape Kushner’s brother-in-law.

On May 9, 2004, Kushner instructed the associate that he wanted a copy of the videotape depicting his brother-in-law having sexual intercourse with the escort, along with still photographs created from the videotape, to be mailed to his sister. He also instructed the associate that he wanted the videotape and still photographs to be mailed from Canada and that they should arrive at his brother-in-law’s home prior to a scheduled family party.

The following day, the private investigator traveled to a location in upstate New York and placed in the mail a package, addressed to Kushner’s sister, containing the videotape and still photographs. The package arrived at the residence of Kushner’s sister, who opened it. In other words, from August 2003 until May 2004, Kushner with intent to retaliate against his sister and her husband for cooperating with law enforcement, arranged for the filmed seduction of her husband and mailed her the tapes.

Now if I were the president of France, I would not accept this ambassadorial appointment; I would reject Kushner’s credentials and send him home. For President Trump to pardon his in-laws is an American disgrace and none of President Macron’s business. For President Trump to send his daughter’s father-in-law as this country’s chief representative in France, by contrast, is an affront to the nation, and I wouldn’t tolerate it. France has not treated us this shabbily in the diplomatic sphere since Tallyrand demanded bribes from the John Adams administration. And I don’t see any good reason for France to respond any more graciously to Trump’s proposal to send them a nepo-criminal than Adams did to Tallyrand demanding gratuities to recognize an American delegation.

Then again, I am an impetuous writer with no responsibility for governing, much less for managing a relationship with the most powerful country on Earth when that country happens to be ruled by a nutcase.

And President Macron very likely will see things differently. The last thing he needs is to gin up Franco-American friction over an ambassadorial appointment. Probably better, he will reason, to save his cannon fire for the big stuff: tariffs, Ukraine, NATO, and the craziness we haven’t even thought of yet. And he’s probably wise not to do what I would do in his shoes.

That said, this should be a bigger story than it is. The Post covered Kushner’s confirmation sketchily. The New York Times hasn’t mentioned it all. But the fact is that 51 senators—including all Republicans with the honorable exception of Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—just voted to send as ambassador to a close ally a criminal who retaliates against family members by hiring sex workers to humiliate them. Sending such a person to represent us abroad is wildly inappropriate conduct on the part of the United States, and it’s wildly inappropriate on the part of the senators (including the lone Democrat to vote for confirmation, Cory Booker) who voted to let it happen.

If the French feel a certain message of disrespect here, they are not wrong.

No, it’s not like dressing down their president in the White House, as Trump did to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a few weeks back and did today to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. But it’s not good either.

As Trump might say, when the United States sends ambassadors to France we’re not sending our best.

Does it matter? I think it does.

If you want to understand a country’s diplomatic expectations, take a look at the ambassadors they send us. The current French ambassador is a distinguished diplomat named Laurent Bili. Ambassador Bili’s immediate prior posting was as France’s ambassador to China. He has been ambassador to Thailand, Turkey, and Brazil, and has held a long series of other important foreign relations positions. To my knowledge he has no history of witness tampering.

That they send us serious diplomats, and we send them thugs is emblematic of just how much we are speaking different languages.

The Situation continues tomorrow.