Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law, confirmed as ambassador to France
The Senate confirmed Charles Kushner - the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and who received a presidential pardon in 2020 - as the U.S. ambassador to France and Monaco.
The nomination passed Monday night with 51 votes to 45. Cory Booker, a senator from Kushner’s home state of New Jersey, was the only Democrat to back the nomination, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the only Republican to oppose.
Kushner, a real estate developer whose son Jared is married to Trump’s eldest 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 over $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.
He served 14 months in a federal prison in Montgomery, Alabama, and spent the remainder of his two-year sentence in a halfway house in Newark.
During Kushner’s time in prison, his son Jared flew to Alabama almost every Sunday to visit and publicly defended his father, as The Washington Post reported in 2016. Jared Kushner took over the business his father founded and left when he became a senior White House adviser to Trump during his first term.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie later described the case against Kushner as “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted.”
At his confirmation hearing this month, Kushner told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he had made “a very, very, very serious mistake, and I paid a heavy price for that mistake,” and he argued that his “past mistakes” would make him “more qualified to do this job” as U.S. ambassador to France.
Trump pardoned Kushner at the end of his first presidential term and nominated him to the post of ambassador in November, describing him at the time as “a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker.”
Kushner’s move to the role comes as relations between the U.S. and its European allies, including France, have been under strain over issues including U.S. tariffs and the Trump administration’s stance on the Ukraine war.
“If confirmed, I am dedicated to building an even stronger relationship between the United States and our oldest ally, France,” Kushner said at his confirmation hearing.
He said he planned to “work closely with France to bring greater balance to our important economic relationship” and also urge the country “to invest more in its defense capabilities, as well as lead the E.U. to align with the U.S. vision of increased European commitments to security.”
France’s former ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, did not respond favorably when Trump announced his nomination of Kushner in November.
“I recommend reading his resume,” Araud wrote on X. “‘Juicy,’ as the Americans would say. Needless to say, he doesn’t have the slightest knowledge of our country. At least he’ll have access to the president. We console ourselves as best we can.”
Kushner is not the only member of Trump’s extended family to have gained a role in his second administration.
In December, Trump nominated Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American business executive and father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser covering Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. The same month, the president nominated Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former prosecutor and Fox News host who was engaged to Donald Trump Jr., to serve as the next ambassador to Greece.