Dear France, Meet Your New American Ambassador, Charles Kushner

The good news is that your incoming American ambassador, Charles Kushner, will fit right in to life in the mansion in Rue Saint-Honoré at Paris.It’s true that the staff and the parties and the bodyguards will be no culture shock because he’s very wealthy. (Though I suspect he may not want to drive the armored Mercedes you offer: It’s German and he, historically, hasn’t liked to drive German cars on account of history — see my book “Kushner, Inc.“ for details.)I am certain, though, that he will make the annual July 4th party for 1,000 even more spectacular than his predecessors. You always want an American real estate developer to give grand parties…Why? Because they suffer from something the Germans call “profil-neurose” (fear of invisibility), so everything they do from collecting art, wives — and throwing parties — is therefore completely over the top.When it comes to communication: Will Charlie’s French be anywhere near the level of that of his predecessors like Felix Rohatyn or Pamela Harriman, who spoke the language “couramment”? That’s a rhetorical question because we know the answer is “non, non, non pas de tout.’” But it doesn’t matter because you all speak perfect English, anyway.But I believe Monsieur L’ambassadeur Kushner will get you culturally — and vice versa — in a way that possibly none of his predecessors did.That’s because La France, for which I have much respect is, the land of sexual sophistication and relaxed mores.Here in America we are all so boringly puritanical.Charles Kushner, center, wades though the media with his legal team and wife to the federal courthouse on August 18, 2004 at Newark, New Jersey. Chris Hondros/Getty ImagesYou, though — your leaders would not deny having sex with “that woman” … you’d be outraged if they did NOT have sex with that woman.In your country, it’s rare to find a man without a mistress — and possibly a gay lover as well; it’s not “inhabituel” for boys to wind up marrying their much older schoolteachers. (See your president, Emmanuel Macron). And it’s appropriate for French first ladies to have posed topless and dated Mick Jagger (see Carla Bruni). You are rightly proud of the high-end discreet brothel boasting 500 of the world’s great beauties, run near the Champs-Élysées by the infamous Madame Claude until she was run out of town by your late President, Valery Giscard D’Estaing (the reasons he did this are still an intriguing “rumeur”); You put Dominique Strauss-Kahn in charge of your economy until he got into a bit of trouble in a Sofitel in America (that’s American puritanism for you). Oh, and let’s not forget that Jeffrey Epstein felt so welcome in Paris, he had a home there…So, let me fill you in on some of the background on Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared. (The close family tie to Trump, is of course a great thing for you. Everyone knows you want an ambassador who can quickly get the president on the phone. And, what’s even better in this case, is that if Charlie needs to get to the person unofficially running America, then he can just get his son on the phone…)The part you may find interessant: Back in 2004 Charlie went to prison because he suffered from, perhaps, a little “hyperphantasia” when planning a sexual encounter for his brother-in-law because he wanted to punish his sister for cooperating with the FBI who were investigating him.What exactly happened?Well, the following excerpt is adapted from “Kushner, Inc.” It details the series of incidents leading to Charles Kushner’s conviction in 2004, leading to a two-year jail sentence. (He was later pardoned by Trump.)The United States ambassador’s official residence on July 27, 2024 at Paris. Kristy Sparow/Getty ImagesIn August of that year he pled guilty to eighteen counts, including aiding in the preparation of false tax returns, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission (I know, I know “comme pietons,” how “pedestrian,” but we now get to the much more interessant count: retaliating against a cooperating witness (his sister Esther).I believe that the story of “La Retaliation” could possibly become a French classic in the right hands of a progressive author living somewhere near Montmartre. The French may see the humanity and the logic in the extraordinaire plot, that possibly, we over here, did not.In order to understand how the following played out, you need to know the dramatis personae:Charlie; his wife Seryl; his brother Murray; Charlie’s sister Esther and her not-always-faithful husband Billy Schulder; Marci Plotkin, an employee of Charlie’s; Richard Stadtmauer, Seryl’s brother and also an employee of Charlie’s; and of course, Jared.We pick up the story when Charlie’s brother Murray, and an accountant loyal to Murray, Bob Yontef, claim that Charlie is stealing from his brother and sister to pay political campaign contributions that augmented Charlie’s profile. The domestic dispute spills into public and the Feds start to investigate Charlie and his campaign donations — and much else. He believes that his sister, Esther, is cooperating with them.After six months of this, Charlie snapped. He decided to coerce Esther into dropping her support of Murray and instead side with him. His plan was brutal, bizarre, and criminal. He offered a cop, Jimmy O’Toole, who was dating Plotkin and was about to retire, $25,000 to set up Billy with a prostitute and film the encounter.O’Toole was said to be reluctant at first, but eventually, in early December 2003, he reportedly had his brother, a private investigator named Tommy, set up a video camera in a digital alarm clock in a room at the Red Bull Inn, a motel on New Jersey’s Route 22. A short time later, a blonde prostitute introduced herself to Billy while he was lunching in a diner in Bridgewater. She said she had car trouble and was hoping he would help her. Billy gave her a lift to the motel and took her number. The following day, he returned to the Red Bull Inn and was filmed receiving oral sex from her.Charlie and Stadtmauer laughed while they watched the clandestine video of that sex act in a conference room at the Florham Park offices, and Charlie asked for copies.A few days later, O’Toole reportedly went to Charlie’s home at Livingston, where, in front of Seryl, Charlie told him to set up Yontef the same way.O’Toole tried, and a second prostitute attempted to seduce Yontef, but he refused her advances.Meanwhile, the feds kept asking questions and started hearing wild stories about Charlie’s private life.In May 2004, right before her son Jacob’s engagement party, Esther opened a large envelope that had been stuffed into her mailbox and found the video of Billy’s rendezvous. She went to the FBI and warned Murray not to go home because she was afraid Charlie was so unhinged that he would kill him.Two months later, on July 13, Charlie was arrested on charges of conspiring to coerce an individual to travel across state lines for prostitution, retaliating against a witness, and impeding justice.The reaction of most Kushner family members was that Charlie had done this to himself. But Jared blamed everyone except his father, and his misplaced anger only grew stronger throughout the years. “His siblings stole every piece of paper from his office, and they took it to the government…,” he would say in an interview with New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman. “Siblings that he literally made wealthy for doing nothing. He gave them interests in the business for nothing. All he did was put the [blackmail] tape together and send it. Was it the right thing to do? At the end of the day, it was a function of saying ‘You’re trying to make my life miserable? Well, I’m doing the same.’”Adapted from Ms. Ward’s Substack.

Dear France, Meet Your New American Ambassador, Charles Kushner

Dear France, Meet Your New American Ambassador, Charles Kushner

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