Among the cronies pardoned by Trump yesterday is Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared. What crimes was he convicted of?
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called it “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he ever prosecuted as U.S. attorney.
After Charles Kushner discovered his brother-in-law was cooperating with federal authorities, the wealthy real estate executive and father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared, hatched a scheme for revenge and intimidation.
Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife.
How sleazy can you get?
The scheme didn’t work. Kushner later pleaded guilty to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations in a case tailor-made for tabloid headlines.
…Kushner eventually pleaded guilty to 18 counts including tax evasion and witness tampering. He was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison — the most he could receive under a plea deal, but less than Christie had sought.
Kushner also agreed to pay $508,900 to the FEC for violating contribution regulations by failing to obtain an OK from partners to whom more than $500,000 in contributions were credited.
He has since resumed his career in real estate, including purchasing the famed Watchtower complex along the Brooklyn Bridge, the former headquarters for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Jared Kushner is a slumlord millionaire. The apple does not fall far from the tree.
Presidential pardons make a complete mockery of the justice system.
“Jared Kushner’s father is a real creep, gets Trump pardon”
In other equally shocking news:
Pope Francis is a practicing Catholic, woodpeckers peck wood, and brown bears often defecate in sylvan environments.
“Presidential pardons make a complete mockery of the justice system.”
You say that as if the justice system isn’t already a complete mockery.
Ivanka married the man whose father was most like her own that she could find.
“You say that as if the justice system isn’t already a complete mockery.”
I’d like to think it isn’t complete, or Trumpet would successfully have overturned the election result.
This made me think of something. Being an asshole is not a crime. But it is the motivation for a supervillain origin story.
@file thirteen:
Usually it feels more like we put up with a few sketchy pardons in order to let a much larger wave of real people who shouldn’t be in the prison system at all have a chance at restarting their lives. This time around that’s just been reversed with the people who seem like they may really deserve one being in the significantly smaller minority. Overall it’s pretty minor as a check on people getting put into prison unjustly but we need that so much I’m not sure I’d want to limit it until we add a better way to do it. Our system of justice has always claimed it’s more concerned with letting the potentially innocent go free rather than penalizing wrongdoing but that mainly only works out as stated if you have a practically unlimited legal budget.
@lanir #6:
When the presidential pardon gets used to free rich crooks and war criminals while the poor and mistreated continue to rot, it may be time to stop keeping it in the forlorn hope that it might one day be used to free another Noah Hanson. Perhaps I would favour retaining it if that power could be placed in the hands of one who is beyond corruption. But Trumpet has moved the bar for the presidency from corrupt to unashamedly corrupt.