Charles Kushner is Jared Kushner’s father. (Remember how he was prosecuted by Chris Christie?) He pleaded guilty to a long list of crimes, including filing false tax returns. But the thing most people remember is that he retaliated against his own sister, who was a cooperating witness, by hiring a prostitute to seduce and have sex with her husband. Then he sent a videotape to his sister. Nice guy! Probably why Trump gave him that pardon? Via Above The Law:
In addition to serving his time, Charles Kushner certainly suffered some personal embarrassments as a result of his crimes. For instance, he had been licensed to practice law in multiple jurisdictions, then was disbarred when he became a convicted felon. Despite the blows to his pride, Kushner’s extremely successful real estate business, Kushner Companies, hardly missed a beat. Kushner Companies was making billion-dollar deals just months after its founder stopped wearing a compulsory jumpsuit.
As part of a bevy of controversial pardons issued days before he sent a mob of lunatics to storm the U.S. Capitol, Donald Trump gave Charles Kushner a full pardon. Though good taste and a rational electorate helped prevent previous presidents from doing something as crass as pardoning their son-in-law’s felon father, such things have never been a concern to Donald Trump.
As if this pardon wasn’t gross enough when it was issued, Charles Kushner just did something that propelled it from a run-of-the-mill Trump-style abuse of power to outright bribery in everything but name. At a time when Donald Trump’s campaign is bleeding cash to pay legal fees, Kushner made a $1 million donation to Trump’s leading super PAC.
Huh. Why, it's almost as if Charles gave Donald an IOU for that pardon - and now it's paid in full!
To anyone who is not a legal gymnast or a fervent partisan, giving a million bucks to the super PAC of the person who pardoned you looks an awful lot like paying for a pardon. Though the people involved here are smart enough not to have left a paper trail showing an overt quid pro quo, the subtext is inescapably clear to anyone else who would like to purchase a pardon in the future. It’s not good to allow this sort of thing to continue unabated.
