Charles and Jared Kushner Family, Mob, and Abwehr
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Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump attend the 9th Annual Eric Trump Foundation Golf Invitational Auction & Dinner at Trump National Golf Club Westchester on September 21, 2015 in Briarcliff Manor, New York. (Getty)
Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband, has been a familiar face on the campaign trail with Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
The 35-year-old real estate developer and newspaper publisher has stood by his father-in-law as he makes his bid for the White House.
Here’s what you need to know about Kushner:
1. Kushner Married Ivanka Trump in 2009 After Dating for 2 Years
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at their wedding at Trump National Golf Club on October 25, 2009 in Bedminster, New Jersey. (Brian Marcus/Fred Marcus Photography)
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were married in October 2009 during a ceremony at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, according to the New York Times.
They met in 2007, when they were both 25, and dated for two years before their wedding. Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism before they were married.
“We met through mutual friends,” Ivanka Trump told New York magazine. “We started dating pretty quickly after we met. It still felt like a slow process — a courtship, if you will.”
She told the magazine Kushner is her best friend:
Jared is my best friend for many reasons, largely because I’ve allowed him to see who I truly am and he still loves me. I don’t feel like I have any defensive walls built up around me. He’s so kind as a human being, I look up to him. He’s a bit of a hero of mine. His ability to remain focused — he lacks an anxiety that’s natural for someone his age handed so much responsibility … Sometimes I catch myself looking at him and being thankful that I have grown to a level of personal maturity that I would value so much the qualities he has.
Kushner and Trump now live in the Upper East Side.
2. They Have 2 Children Together & a Third on the Way
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump with their two children. (Instagram)
Kushner and Ivanka Trump have two children together, and she is pregnant with their third child.
Their daughter, Arabella Rose Kushner, is 4, and their son, Joseph, is 2.
Ivanka Trump is expected to give birth in early 2016.
3. He Is Also the Son of a New York Real Estate Mogul
Like his wife, Jared Kushner is the son of a New York real estate mogul, Charles Kushner. He is also involved in his family’s real estate company, Kushner Properties. He has been the CEO of the company since 2008.
Jared Kushner was born in New Jersey, and graduated from the Frisch School, a yeshiva high school in Paramus, before attending Harvard University and New York University School of LAw.
His father served two years in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2005 to federal tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign donation charges. He was prosecuted by now-New Jersey Governor and former presidential candidate Chris Christie.
The family’s company owns 20,000 residential apartments nationwide, along with 12 million square feet of office, industrial and retail space.
“I spend probably about 80 percent of my time on Kushner Companies, and the other 20 percent on different companies I’m involved with or different projects I work on. I always try to focus on what needs the most attention,” Jared Kushner told the New York Times last year. “The good thing about being involved in a lot of things is that my experiences in all the various businesses inform my perspectives and views on all the other ones.”
Kushner said of the possibility of doing business with Donald Trump, “He’s a great father-in-law. We’re in different segments of the market. But, yeah, there’s no aversion to doing it.”
He said his wife is a “great sounding board” for his business decisions.
4. He Is the Owner & Publisher of the New York Observer Weekly Newspaper
Jared Kushner is also the owner and publisher of the weekly newspaper the New York Observer, which he purchased in 2006 when he was 25. He told the New York Times last year that the Observer is “cash-flow positive.”
The Observer’s editors have struggled with how to cover Donald Trump’s presidential run, given their conflict of interest. They have added a disclaimer disclosing the conflict on the end of every story about Trump.
“The Observer will continue to chew this over and discuss it internally and externally, as we’ve been responsibly doing. We will cover developments as we see fit and to the degree that we can do so without unnecessary conflicts, real or perceived,” editor Ken Kurson said. “The Observer will take its time to try to get it right and present coverage that is thoughtful and relevant, as we have always tried to do.”
5. His Younger Brother Is a Venture Capitalist Who Is Dating Model Karlie Kloss
Joshua Kushner and Karlie Kloss. (Instagram)
Jared Kushner’s brother, Joshua Kushner, also works for Kushner Properties and is a venture capitalist. HE is the owner of Vostu and Thrive Capital, and has invested in Oscar, a health insurance start-up, and Cadre, a technology platform designed to help clients invest in real estate.
Joshua Kushner is also the longtime boyfriend of Victoria’s Secret model Karlie Kloss.
Jared Kushner also has two sisters, Nicole and Dara.
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Mr. Kushner said his failure to disclose the Trump Tower meeting, the Gorkov meeting and scores of other foreign contacts as part of his application for security clearance was an error.
At this point, the right question to ask is why Mr. Kushner still has any diplomatic role at all.
The Kushner family is scouring the globe for investors to shoulder billions in debt and redevelopment costs that Jared Kushner encumbered the company with when he bought a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, at a record price for the time. How handy, then, that Mr. Kushner, who still owns a hefty stake in the Kushner Companies, is Mr. Trump’s chief liaison with some two dozen nations, often operating outside formal guidance by the State Department or the National Security Council.
After the election, Mr. Kushner met with Anbang Insurance Group, a conglomerate closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party, about a joint venture in the 666 Fifth Avenue project, potentially worth billions, even though Anbang’s shadowy ownership had drawn national security concerns. The talks ended after a storm of Democratic outrage, but that didn’t stop the Kushners from continuing to trawl for Chinese investments, using Mr. Kushner’s big White House job as a lure.
Last May, Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer mentioned her brother and Mr. Trump in a pitch to Chinese investors in Beijing. This time the Kushners were seeking $150 million in financing for a Jersey City housing development, through the EB-5 visa program, derided as “U.S. citizenship for sale” because it awards foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in American enterprises with a path to citizenship. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Kushner Companies’ past use of the EB-5 visa program. Federal prosecutors have sought records on Kushner Companies from Deutsche Bank, which over the years has lent hundreds of millions to the Kushner and Trump family businesses. Last week, the New York State Department of Financial Services, which regulates New York and some international banks, asked Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and several others for information about their relationships with Mr. Kushner and his finances, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Mr. Kushner has spent his career until now inside a cocoon of family wealth and connections. Former associates say that as chief executive of Kushner Companies and as owner of the struggling New York Observer, which the Kushners bought in 2006, Mr. Kushner disregarded relevant experience and rules, leaving it to lawyers and advisers to clean up his mistakes.
It’s beginning to dawn on Mr. Kushner that Washington doesn’t work like that. And the walls seem to be closing in on him. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has been working to narrow Mr. Kushner’s lane, and limit his access to classified material and briefings. But as F.B.I. investigators circle the West Wing and extend their scrutiny to the Kushner businesses, Mr. Kushner might still want the protective umbrella of the White House.
Clearly, Americans deserve better from their public servants, but the law doesn’t provide sufficient protection from a president who doesn’t get that. Firming up the anti-nepotism law to cover White House advisers has been criticized as an infringement on a president’s right to seek private personal counsel. But Congress could require that presidential appointees across the federal government possess relevant credentials and experience, that they meet enforceable performance metrics, and — do we really need to say this? — that they can pass a background check. If Mr. Kushner’s performance inspires such reforms, it could prove his only real achievement.
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Mr. Kushner said his failure to disclose the Trump Tower meeting, the Gorkov meeting and scores of other foreign contacts as part of his application for security clearance was an error.
At this point, the right question to ask is why Mr. Kushner still has any diplomatic role at all.
The Kushner family is scouring the globe for investors to shoulder billions in debt and redevelopment costs that Jared Kushner encumbered the company with when he bought a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue, at a record price for the time. How handy, then, that Mr. Kushner, who still owns a hefty stake in the Kushner Companies, is Mr. Trump’s chief liaison with some two dozen nations, often operating outside formal guidance by the State Department or the National Security Council.
After the election, Mr. Kushner met with Anbang Insurance Group, a conglomerate closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party, about a joint venture in the 666 Fifth Avenue project, potentially worth billions, even though Anbang’s shadowy ownership had drawn national security concerns. The talks ended after a storm of Democratic outrage, but that didn’t stop the Kushners from continuing to trawl for Chinese investments, using Mr. Kushner’s big White House job as a lure.
Last May, Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer mentioned her brother and Mr. Trump in a pitch to Chinese investors in Beijing. This time the Kushners were seeking $150 million in financing for a Jersey City housing development, through the EB-5 visa program, derided as “U.S. citizenship for sale” because it awards foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in American enterprises with a path to citizenship. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Kushner Companies’ past use of the EB-5 visa program. Federal prosecutors have sought records on Kushner Companies from Deutsche Bank, which over the years has lent hundreds of millions to the Kushner and Trump family businesses. Last week, the New York State Department of Financial Services, which regulates New York and some international banks, asked Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and several others for information about their relationships with Mr. Kushner and his finances, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Mr. Kushner has spent his career until now inside a cocoon of family wealth and connections. Former associates say that as chief executive of Kushner Companies and as owner of the struggling New York Observer, which the Kushners bought in 2006, Mr. Kushner disregarded relevant experience and rules, leaving it to lawyers and advisers to clean up his mistakes.
It’s beginning to dawn on Mr. Kushner that Washington doesn’t work like that. And the walls seem to be closing in on him. John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, has been working to narrow Mr. Kushner’s lane, and limit his access to classified material and briefings. But as F.B.I. investigators circle the West Wing and extend their scrutiny to the Kushner businesses, Mr. Kushner might still want the protective umbrella of the White House.
Clearly, Americans deserve better from their public servants, but the law doesn’t provide sufficient protection from a president who doesn’t get that. Firming up the anti-nepotism law to cover White House advisers has been criticized as an infringement on a president’s right to seek private personal counsel. But Congress could require that presidential appointees across the federal government possess relevant credentials and experience, that they meet enforceable performance metrics, and — do we really need to say this? — that they can pass a background check. If Mr. Kushner’s performance inspires such reforms, it could prove his only real achievement.
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Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has emerged as a significant influence within the policy-making apparatus of the White House. After a rather public imbroglio with Trump’s strategic policy adviser Stephen Bannon over the U.S. cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase in Syria, Kushner is «in», as they often say in Washington, and Bannon is «out». In any case, the anti-globalist faction, which is led by Bannon, has received verbal «thumbs down» on several fronts from Trump.
Trump’s adoption of Clintonesque Democratic Party policies of opposing the Syrian government, confronting Russia, supporting NATO, backing the U.S. Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, and militarily confronting North Korea and China in East Asia have neo-conservatives and globalists cheering but many within Trump’s political base of «America First» nationalists and libertarians crying foul.
The warning signs that Kushner was fronting for the neo-conservatives was always present. His media company, Observer Media, which publishes the weekly on-line New York Observer, prominently featured several neo-conservative writers. Kushner, who also led the real estate firm Kushner Companies, turned over control of the newspaper to his brother-in-law after being named as senior adviser to President Trump. Kushner inherited a real estate empire from his father, Charles Kushner. In 2007, Jared Kushner made the largest single purchase of a single building in U.S. history, he paid $1.8 billion for a 41-story building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In 2015, Jared Kushner bought a 50.1 percent share in the Time Square Building in Manhattan from Africa Israel Investments, Ltd. (AFI), an investment and holding company owned by Israeli-Uzbek diamond magnate Lev Leviev. In what could spell trouble for U.S. relations with the Palestine and Africa, AFI has been involved in the building of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the acquisition of diamonds from Africa’s bloodiest of conflict zones.
AFI and its subsidiary, Danya Cebus, have been subjected to disinvestments by a number of governments and companies over its West Bank activities. In August 2010, the Norwegian pension fund divested in the two firms. Leviev is also involved in dodgy casino operations, which puts him in the same business circles as casino operator Trump. In 2009, Playtech Cyprus, Ltd., one of AFI’s companies, began providing casino equipment to a new casino in Bucharest, Romania. Playtech was started in 1999 by four Israelis, Teddy Sagi, Elad Cohen, Rami Beinish, and Amnon Ben-Zion. Playtech’s on-line gambling software is primarily provided by software programmers in Estonia. Sagi is a convicted stock fraudster, having been convicted of fraud in the 1996 «Discount Bank affair», a stock and bond manipulation scheme that shook the Tel Aviv business community. Leviev’s Africa diamond mining operations involve several «former» Mossad officers, most notably in Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Namibia, and Angola.
The narrow gap of separation between Jared Kushner and some of Israel’s top gangsters is cause for alarm. This situation became especially acute after it was revealed that Kushner failed to provide all the requested information on his national security questionnaire forms concerning his contacts with foreign persons and interests, has led for congressional calls for his security clearance to be suspended.
The feud between Jared Kushner and Bannon is not the first personality conflict Kushner has had with members of the Trump team. The first demonstration of Kushner's powerful influence over Trump was evidenced in his firing of Trump transition team chairman New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his loyalists, who included former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman. For Kushner, the firings were an ultimate payback for Christie. While the U.S. Attorney for Northern New Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. Christie wanted a three-year prison sentence for the elder Kushner but he ended up serving a year at a federal penitentiary in Alabama.
Christie's federal law enforcement investigation discovered that Charles Kushner tried to lure his brother-in-law and employee, William Schulder, into a prostitution honey trap at the Red Bull Inn motel in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The elder Kushner paid $10,000 to a high-end prostitute, who reportedly worked for a Manhattan escort agency linked to the Mossad, to lure Schulder into a trap, complete with a videotape system, designed to prevent him from testifying on behalf of Christie at Kushner's trial. After Schulder’s wife was sent a videotape of the tryst at the motel, Christie managed to not only ensure that an embarrassed but angered Schulder remained a star witness but also got the prostitute to testify against Kushner. Another witness for the prosecutors, Robert Yontef, Kushner’s chief bookkeeper, was also subjected to a Kushner prostitution trap and a «smoking gun» videotape arranged by another call girl hired by Kushner.
Charles Kushner also managed to get New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey to appoint him to the New York-New Jersey Port Authority Commission, which owned the World Trade Center, a plum position on 9/11 for a suspected asset of Israel’s Mossad. Hudson County and Jersey City law enforcement authorities were well-aware that Mossad elements were involved in many of the intelligence activities surrounding and in support of the 9/11 event in the months leading up to the attack in 2001.
The Kushner family appears to relish in the politics of revenge and blackmail as McGreevey discovered the hard way.
While he was mayor of Woodbridge, McGreevey met an Israeli intelligence asset named Golan Cipel during a 2000 fact finding trip to Israel arranged by Charles Kushner, who was a generous donor to McGreevey's political coffers. Although the trip was sponsored by the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest, the goal was to ensure future loyalty from an up-and-coming New Jersey politician being groomed for governor of his state. Cipel was the chief spokesman for the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion, but he soon ended up on McGreevey's gubernatorial campaign staff, thanks to the influence, U.S. work visa clearance, and money arranged by the elder Kushner. It is noteworthy that Rishon LeZion represents one of the right-wing Likud Party's most important bases of support in Israel. A powerful political kingmaker, Charles Kushner secured McGreevey’s Democratic nomination for the governor’s race after seeking the support – that is, arm twisting – the Democratic Party chairmen of the counties of Union, Essex, Middlesex, and Camden.
After becoming governor, McGreevey appointed Cipel, an Israeli national and employee of Kushner, as his chief counselor on political strategy, foreign affairs, and relations with the Jewish community. But it was McGreevey's appointment of Cipel as his director for homeland security that raised eyebrows across the state, especially after 9/11.
During McGreevey's governorship, Cipel decided to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against the governor in Mercer County Court. Cipel, a one-time «diplomat» – read that as a Mossad agent – at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, in a single legal action, destroyed McGreevey's political career. The suit forced McGreevey, who was married with two children, to admit that he led a parallel and secret gay lifestyle. With that bombshell news hitting the media, McGreevey was forced to resign. Several New Jersey political observers believe that Charles Kushner was behind Cipel’s lawsuit after McGreevey did not turn out as the kind of puppet Kushner expected him to be. In fact, during the Cipel suit, McGreevey’s lawyers contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and tipped them off about a possible Kushner-Cipel extortion operation directed against the governor.
Undoubtedly, Christie, who had his eyes already set upon the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, knew all about the role that Charles Kushner played in the ultimate blackmailing of one of his predecessors as governor. With the sort of background information possessed by a federal prosecutor like Christie, who had access to wiretap transcripts gathered from the Kushner family’s phone and other communications, it is clear that Jared Kushner saw Christie as a major threat to the future Kushner family agenda within the Trump administration.
With Christie, and, possibly soon, Bannon out of the way, Jared Kushner will be able to cement his Svengali-like control over Trump. Considering the record of political muscle exercised by the Kushner klan against two New Jersey governors, one can only surmise the Kushners have a great deal of blackmailable information on Mr. Trump.
With Christie, and, possibly soon, Bannon out of the way, Jared Kushner will be able to cement his Svengali-like control over Trump. Considering the record of political muscle exercised by the Kushner klan against two New Jersey governors, one can only surmise the Kushners have a great deal of blackmailable information on Mr. Trump.
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Jim McGreevey
(Photo: AP Photos)
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Less than 24 hours after New Jersey developer Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to retaliating against a federal witness and filing both false tax returns and false campaign-finance reports, the would-be political kingmaker was in his office on Columbia Turnpike in Florham Park. Shamed, humiliated, and facing at least a year and a half in jail, he was discussing his predicament with defense attorney Ben Brafman, marveling at how fast his life had unraveled. Wasn’t this the same man who had built Kushner Companies into a billion-dollar real-estate empire that controlled office buildings, condominiums, and apartments in half a dozen states? Hadn’t he skillfully crafted a role for himself as a major power broker with unfettered access by contributing millions of dollars to politicians?
It was no accident that when Bill Clinton was president, he made several appearances at Kushner functions in Florham Park. So had former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And so, especially, had Governor James McGreevey, who, more than any of the others, was a political creature built of his will and cash. Kushner, 50, was also a towering figure in the Jewish community, building schools, helping synagogues, and contributing freely to a broad variety of causes both here and in Israel.
But there he was on that midsummer morning several weeks ago, forced to contemplate how, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, he had destroyed so much of what he had spent years working so hard to build. On June 30, he had to pay a $508,900 fine to the Federal Election Commission, one of the highest penalties ever assessed. Less than a week later, rather than be arrested, he turned himself in to the FBI to face a litany of criminal charges.
Now he has stepped down as chairman of his company. His days as a political force both nationally and in New Jersey are over. Saddest of all, he has shattered his once close-knit family. The days when the Kushner clan—Charles and his three siblings and all their spouses and kids and grandkids—would travel to Miami together for Passover are long gone. He and his older brother, Murray, have not spoken in more than two years as a result of a bitter lawsuit over money Murray believed Charles owed him from deals they had done together—a lawsuit that Charles Kushner’s supporters claim opened the door for the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into his campaign-finance activities.
And, of course, to add to the horror, the federal witnesses he had attempted to retaliate against were his sister and brother-in-law, who were cooperating with that same investigation. Kushner paid a prostitute $10,000 to lure his brother-in-law to a motel room at the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater to have sex with him. A hidden camera recorded the activity, and Kushner sent the lurid tape to his sister, making sure the tape arrived on the day of a family party.
As he sat in his office less than 24 hours after his guilty plea, the phone rang. The caller couldn’t have been more unexpected—it was Governor Jim McGreevey. Though Kushner had given the governor more than $1.5 million for his two races and was instrumental in his rise to power, the two had barely spoken in months.
There is a strange symmetry to the fall of the two titans. Exactly one week before, McGreevey had also lost nearly everything he had worked his whole life to achieve. In an even more public, more personal, and more heavily scrutinized admission of guilt, McGreevey stood in the statehouse in Trenton, flanked by his oddly smiling wife and his parents, and admitted his own lies, deceptions, and sensational bad judgment. “My truth,” he said, “is that I am a gay American.”
Kushner’s split with McGreevey had occurred almost nine months earlier, when Kushner was competing with Bruce Ratner to buy the New Jersey Nets. During a conference call that included the governor and two officials of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, Kushner laid out his proposal for the basketball team, and asked for a $25 million subsidy from the state.
According to sources familiar with the call, McGreevey responded in a very un-McGreevey-like way: He said no, a word he rarely spoke to anyone. Thoughtfully, he explained why the state couldn’t spend vast sums of public money to keep the Nets in New Jersey. Perhaps surprised by the governor’s intransigence, Kushner was “angry and bitterly disappointed,” according to someone on the call, and he apparently lost it. He went into a screaming tirade—everyone was stunned. When Kushner hung up, McGreevey calmly said to those around him, “Well, I guess I won’t have to put up with Charles Kushner anymore.”
“The McGreevey administration was without adult supervision,” says one insider. “All the guys who could provide a compass were pushed out.”
But now there were no histrionics. “It was a very warm, personal conversation,” says Brafman, “between two close friends going through some very public problems. They talked about what they’ve each been going through, and they just wanted to support one another.”
In the middle of February, about a month after being sworn in as governor, Jim McGreevey made two appointments that would change the course of his career. He gave a seat on the board of the Port Authority to Charles Kushner, and he named Golan Cipel an adviser on homeland security.
McGreevey, who had been the mayor of Woodbridge, had always been viewed as a pleasant if uptight policy wonk. He worked hard, had very little fun as best as anyone could tell, and had an almost obsessive ambition, nursed since adolescence, to become governor. “He had a propensity for saying yes and being on both sides of the issues,” says one insider. “He would’ve called it being political.”
In an era of Internet fund-raising, instant polling, and a 24-hour news cycle, New Jersey still practices diner politics—deals are still brokered in vinyl-covered booths over coffee served by waitresses who call people “doll.” “The McGreevey administration is really a throwback,” says Jon Shure, who served as Jim Florio’s press secretary and now heads a policy forum called New Jersey Policy Perspective. “Up until the seventies, the way to become governor was by a handful of powerful county leaders deciding to pick you as the candidate. This is what happened in McGreevey’s case. The county chairs in Union, Essex, Middlesex, and Camden got together and said, ‘This is who we’ll back, this is who we’ll rally behind.’ ”
Kushner made essentially the same decision after McGreevey narrowly lost to Christine Todd Whitman in 1997. He decided to solidify and amp up what had been a casual relationship, believing McGreevey would win the next time around.
It was a perfect marriage. The only thing Kushner craved more than wealth was access to power. For his part, McGreevey, like all politicians, needed money. He also needed a way to keep his political team together until the next campaign began in 2001. So he started an organization called Committee for Working Families, which employed his key people and was largely funded by Kushner.
The Kushner family is part of a New Jersey phenomenon known as the Holocaust builders. In the post–World War II wave of survivors who came to America was a small group of men who settled in northern New Jersey and became extraordinarily successful builders and real-estate developers. In addition to the Kushners, there are the Wilfs, the Rosens, and the Zuckerman and Pantirer families. (Zuckerman and Pantirer were saved by Oskar Schindler, and everything they build has a street or a building named for Schindler.)
The families operate like clans, with sons and daughters and sons-in-law and grandkids all working in the business. They are active in communal Jewish life, and outside of the occasional mention in one of the Jewish newspapers, they work very hard to fly under the radar.
Kushner’s high profile was always an irritant to the other families. He has been referred to as the Dapper Don of the Holocaust builders. Not only did he have the silver hair, impeccably tailored suits, and the swagger, but like John Gotti, he brought far more attention to his community than any of the others were comfortable with. “In New Jersey, you contribute money not for access but results,” says Alan Marcus, founder of the Marcus Group, a political-consulting company. “Anybody who doesn’t admit that is lying.”
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Of the myriad ways in which Donald Trump has forced his pathetic assemblage of voters, political enablers, and media hangers-on to debase themselves, surely nothing has been so pitiful as the recent apologetics offered by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In a piece for the New York Observer—which he owns—titled “The Donald Trump I Know,” Kushner began by declaring, “My father-in-law is not an anti-Semite.” Displaying the sort of defensive rationalization employed by people who feel a need to preface their disquisitions on inner-city crime or immigration with the proviso, “I’m not a racist,” Kushner’s article radiated the desperation of a hostage tape—which, in a way, it was. Alongside banal attacks on the “speech police” and “the media” for holding Trump up to an “insane standard” of propriety, Kushner shared the story, “which I have never discussed,” of his ancestors’ victimization at the hands of the Nazis so as to ensure readers that he is ever-attuned to “real anti-Semitism.”
The presumably “fake” anti-Semitism that his father-in-law has been so unfairly accused of peddling was highlighted just a day earlier by one of Kushner’s own writers at the Observer, Dana Schwartz, in an open letter to her boss. Prompting Schwartz’s concern was a tweet by Trump, which, under the headline “Crooked Hillary–Makes History!” depicted the presumptive Democratic nominee in profile against a backdrop of raining dollar bills and a six-pointed star declaring her “Most corrupt candidate ever!” Internet sleuths quickly traced the provenance of the image to a white supremacist web forum. What followed was the usual rigmarole whenever Trump is caught red-handed uttering bigoted things, or retweeting bigoted things, or winking at bigots: a half-assed apology on the part of the campaign followed by immediate repudiation by the candidate himself. After taking down the original image and reposting it with a circle instead of a star (alongside the totally kosher hashtag #AmericaFirst, the anti-Semitic origins of which Trump cannot possibly, at this point, claim ignorance), Trump and his coterie effectively rescinded their earlier admissions of remorse by variously asserting that the star was innocuously lifted from Microsoft Shapes, is a “sheriff’s star,” and, most ridiculously, no different than the one appearing on the cover of a Frozen coloring book.
We know Kushner is not oblivious to anti-Semitism. One of the first decisions he made as owner of the Observer was to fire the writer Phil Weiss, then beginning his descent from someone creepily obsessed with Jews into proprietor of an anti-Semitic hate site. (Ironically, Weiss was one of the few people aside from right-wing extremists to defend his old boss in Stargate.) Whether Trump himself fully grasped the implications of slipping a Magen David into a tableau of money and accusations of financial impropriety—indeed, whether he is, in his heart, an anti-Semite—is beside the point. More pertinent is the simple fact that Trump lifted the meme from a racist Internet troll and has garnered the enthusiastic support of seemingly every anti-Semite and white nationalist in the United States. When it comes to questions like “Is Trump dog-whistling at racists or merely lifting iconography from a popular Disney franchise?” I think I’ll take the word of David Duke over that of Jared Kushner.
The rest of Kushner’s article was incoherent, dishonest, or evasive. For instance, in the very same sentence where he attributes the star imbroglio to Trump’s “team” being “careless in choosing an image to retweet,” Kushner states that the whole controversy derives from the fact “that it’s the actual candidate communicating with the American public rather than the armies of handlers who poll test ordinary candidates’ every move.” Invoking the hackneyed anecdote of Pauline Kael’s expression of befuddlement at Richard Nixon’s victory, registered on account of her knowing only one person who voted for him, Kushner instructs Schwartz and her journalistic colleagues “to get out there and meet some of those people ‘outside their ken’ ” supporting Trump. Because if there’s one man who understands the frustrations of middle America—aside, of course, from Trump himself—it’s this dapper, Orthodox Jewish product of the Frisch School, Harvard College, and New York University’s law and business schools. “The worst that his detractors can fairly say about him,” Kushner writes of his father-in-law, “is that he has been careless in retweeting imagery that can be interpreted as offensive.” If you put aside Trump’s endorsement of violence against protesters, wanton disregard for the First Amendment, ridicule of the physically handicapped for the delectation of a braying mob, endorsement of nuclear proliferation, call to withdraw from NATO, envious admiration for all manner of anti-American despots and thugs (the latest being Saddam Hussein), remarks about a reporter’s menstrual cycle, clinically malignant narcissism, pig ignorance about the basic functions of government, proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country, racist attacks on a federal judge, etc. and ad infinitum … if, in other words, Trump was merely the joke vanity candidate we all thought he was a year ago, then, yes, perhaps his noxious Twitter account would be “the worst” thing about his disgusting and disgraceful campaign.
Like smoking crack or joining the Communist Party after the Moscow purge trials, supporting Donald Trump makes you say and do stupid things you’ll come to regret. Distinguishing Jared Kushner’s submission to the genre of Trump defenses from those of other Trumpkins was its exploitation of the Holocaust. Kushner tells us that this is the first time he has shared this story of familial agony, an admission that, given the context, would be execrable enough even without his galling accusation that it is his father-in-law’s “detractors” who are “manipulate[ing] the public.” And Kushner revealed this heirloom of family suffering—which is hardly his own suffering—for what? To defend a man who plays political footsie with the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan?
***
To understand how Jared Kushner could reach such depths, one must first understand that not only is he the son-in-law of an abusive sociopath, but the son of one as well. Charles Kushner, a child of Holocaust survivors, inherited a family real-estate development business and grew it into a billion-dollar empire with properties across six states. If one wants to rise from mere landlord to true real-estate mogul, it is necessary—given the role that the legislative and judicial systems play in determining who may use property to what end, i.e., the value of property—to become a political power broker. And so Charles took a lesson from his future in-law Donald Trump: He invested heavily in politics, becoming one of the biggest Democratic donors in the country. His greatest investment was a young New Jersey politico named Jim McGreevy, who as governor, appointed Kushner to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Distinguishing Jared Kushner’s submission to the genre of Trump defenses from those of other Trumpkins was its exploitation of the Holocaust.
Charles Kushner seemed to have an insatiable appetite for money and power and recognized the role politics played at the nexus of both. To maximize his influence, Kushner circumvented federal campaign finance laws by funneling money to candidates and elected officials with donations made in the names of other people and through the more than 100 separate real-estate development partnerships he controlled. In one of this already absurd campaign’s more novelistic ironies, Kushner’s dirty dealings caught the attention of a young, ambitious federal prosecutor named Chris Christie, who opened up an investigation that called Kushner’s sister, Esther, and brother-in-law, Billy, as witnesses. Determined to prevent Billy from testifying, Charles set up a honey trap for his brother-in-law in a motel room—fully equipped with video cameras—and paid a prostitute $10,000. Kushner then sent a tape of the assignation to his sister, who promptly turned her brother’s attempt at blackmail over to the authorities.
Now charged with obstruction of justice and witness tampering in addition to campaign finance violations, Kushner pleaded guilty to all 18 felonious counts against him. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison and had to pay one of the highest-ever fines levied by the Federal Election Commission—all of which amounted to a slap on the wrist given the nature of his conduct, the mountains of incontrovertible evidence against him, and his lack of any evident remorse, despite pleading guilty. “What is truly extraordinary is that Charles Kushner has failed to accept full responsibility for his outrageous criminal conduct,” said Christie, who today is one of Trump’s closest advisers, alongside the son of the man he had arrested.
Kushner was also implicated in the simultaneous downfall of his political protégé McGreevy, who became infamous for a live televised resignation during which he announced to the world that he was “a gay American.” Thanks to this cynical deflection, most today remember McGreevy as having done nothing worse than commit marital infidelity under the duress of his decision to marry a woman and live his life in the closet. But the main reason McGreevy was forced to step down from his post was that his former lover, an Israeli man named Golan Cipel whom he had put on the state payroll in a make-work job, was threatening to sue him for sexual harassment.
So, who was Golan Cipel? McGreevy had met Cipel several years earlier in Israel, and it was Charles Kushner who sponsored the young Israeli’s work visa to the United States and then generously employed Cipel in one of his companies before the governor hired him. Some speculated that Kushner, recognizing the blackmail potential of this arrangement, persuaded Cipel to threaten McGreevy with exposure. That would explain why, 10 minutes before McGreevy’s tearful confession, a lawyer representing Cipel called McGreevy’s office conveying the message that the jilted lover would keep their affair secret if the governor fulfilled an odd request: grant a charter to Touro College allowing it to open a medical school in New Jersey—a medical school for which Charles Kushner had raised money and hoped to name after his late mother. (At the time, Kushner, through his lawyer, denied any involvement.)
With his father in the slammer, Jared became the nominal head of the family business, and he remained a loyal son. Unlike Andrew and Mark Madoff, who never spoke a word to their dad after turning him over to the feds, Jared regularly visited Charles in federal prison, trekking down to Alabama once a week, and defended him publicly. Jared’s role in this lurid, Jewish Sopranos-like clan explains how the scion of one tri-state crime family could fit so naturally into another.
Jared and his wife, Ivanka Trump, are both the children of monumental assholes. But that’s where their similarities end. Jared’s whole life has been about being presentable, wearing a nice suit, and enduring the abuse of an older father figure, which is basically the role he now plays in the Trump clan. Who in his right mind would tolerate a lifetime of sucking up to Donald Trump and listening to the repulsive nonsense that spews from his mouth, particularly if he were heir to his own monumental real-estate fortune? Unlike Ivanka, who clearly controls her own destiny, Kushner comes across as a whipping boy, eager to please and do as he’s told.
Putting up with the antics of Donald Trump, then, is nothing new or challenging for Kushner, whose father actually served prison time for the sorts of things Donald Trump only brags about doing. In a way, Kushner was the perfect person for Ivanka to marry, as he’s precisely the sort of person who can tolerate the humiliation of being Donald Trump’s son-in-law without lashing out and forcing his wife to choose between her husband and her father, or having an affair out of rage and resentment, or otherwise blowing up the fortunate union that his beloved engineered in her own interest and presumably that of her children.
Ivanka, by contrast, has proved her relative independence by helming her own successful fashion company and converting to Orthodox Judaism—which seems like the perfect way to keep her from eating dinner too often in her father’s home. Ivanka’s relationship to her family is not unlike that of a good Christian’s place in this fallen world; she is in the Trump brood but not of it.
Ivanka has doubtlessly learned a great deal from the experience of her mother, Ivana, who was rooked into a stingy prenuptial agreement by Donald. The Czechoslovak former model channeled everything into her children; in marrying Jared Kushner, Ivanka pulled off the classical European dynastic achievement of unifying two large houses whose fortunes will go to her offspring. For that to happen, however, Ivanka knew that she would have to marry someone who would not disrupt her matriarchal power. Ivanka knows how to control her father, at least to the extent that he can be controlled (witness her decisive hand in the firing of Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski). The person she married also had to be someone over whom she could exert power.
All this explains how Jared Kushner could shamelessly tout his status as the descendant of Holocaust survivors to vouch for the honor of someone so undeserving of it as Donald Trump. Whatever Kushner needs to do to comfort himself over his enabling this pox on the American body politic—whose political ascent is the single worst thing to happen to the United States since Sept. 11—he will do. He’s been training for this role his entire life, under the tutelage of his father and now his wife. It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for him.
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Charles Kushner (born May 16, 1954) is an American real estate developer. He founded Kushner Companies in 1985. In 2005, he was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering, and served time in federal prison. After his release, he resumed his career in real estate. His son, Jared Kushner, is the husband of Ivanka Trump and son-in-law and senior advisor to President Donald Trump.
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Early life and education[edit]
Kushner was born on May 16, 1954,[2] to Joseph and Rae Kushner, Jewish Holocaust survivors who came to America from Belarus in 1949.[3][4] At birth, he was named Chanan, after a maternal uncle who died in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.[1] He grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with his elder brother Murray Kushner[2][5] and sister Esther Schulder.[6][7][8]:3 His father worked as a construction worker, builder, and real estate investor.[2] Kushner graduated from the Hofstra University School of Law in 1979.[9]
Career[edit]
In 1985, he began managing his father's portfolio of 4,000 New Jersey apartments.[2][5] He founded Kushner Companies - headquartered in Florham Park, New Jersey - and became its chairman.[2][5] In 1999, he won the Ernst & Young New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year award. At the time, Kushner Companies had grown to more than 10,000 residential apartments, a homebuilding business, commercial and industrial properties, and a community bank.[10]
Criminal conviction[edit]
In the summer of 2004, Kushner was fined $508,900 by the Federal Election Commission for contributing to Democratic political campaigns in the names of his partnerships when he lacked authorization to do so.[11] In 2005, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey,[12] U.S. Attorney Chris Christie negotiated a plea agreement with him, under which he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering.[13] The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner's act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther's husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators; Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record an encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister.[14][15][16][13] He was sentenced to two years in prison,[14] and served 14 months at Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery in Alabama[17][18] before being sent to a halfway housein Newark, New Jersey, to complete his sentence.[17][18][19] He was released from prison on August 25, 2006.[20]
As a result of his convictions, Kushner was disbarred, prohibited from practicing law in New Jersey,[21]New York,[22] and Pennsylvania.[23]
New York City real estate[edit]
After being released from prison, Kushner shifted his business activities from New Jersey to New York City. In early 2007, Kushner Companies bought the 666 Fifth Avenue building in Manhattan for US$1.8 billion.[24] He and his family are estimated to have a net worth of $1.8 billion.[1] He has employed two fellow inmates he became acquainted with in prison.[25]
Donations[edit]
Before 2016, Kushner was a donor to the Democratic Party.[12] He serves on the boards of Touro College, Stern College for Women, Rabbinical College of America, and the United Jewish Communities.[26] Kushner has donated to Harvard University, Stern College, the St. Barnabas Medical Center, and United Cerebral Palsy.[26] He contributed to the funding of two schools, Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, in Livingston, New Jersey, and named them after his parents.[2][26][27] Kushner Hall is a building that is named after him on the Hofstra University campus.[28] The campus of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center is named the "Seryl and Charles Kushner Campus" in honor of their donation of $20 million.[29]
In August 2015, Kushner donated $100,000 to Donald Trump's Make America Great Again PAC, a super PAC supporting Trump's 2016 campaign for the presidency.[30] Kushner and his wife also hosted a reception for Trump at their Jersey Shore seaside mansion in Long Branch.[31]
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