Sen. Cory Booker, it turns out, is not among the Defiance Democrats who oppose every move that Donald Trump makes.
On Monday, he broke ranks and provided the only Democratic vote to confirm Charlie Kushner, the real estate tycoon as ambassador to France. The two men, as it happens, are old friends and allies.
America will survive this one. Yes, it’s a steep fall when you consider that the job was once held by Benjamin Frankin, and then Thomas Jefferson. But these days, rich and unqualified people like Kushner run our embassies all over the world.
Still, Booker’s vote is worth a hard look for two reasons. One is the depraved nature of the crimes committed by Kushner two decades ago, which earned him a 14-month stint in federal prison for tax evasion and witness tampering. We’ll get to that, but the story is appalling, and raises doubts about Kushner’s moral fitness for the job.
The second is that Booker (D-N.J.) is not being entirely honest about his vote.
In a statement released the next day, he explained his vote by citing Kushner’s help in gathering support for the First Step Act of 2018, a Booker bill aimed at reducing mass incarceration. “I supported his confirmation because he has been unrelenting in reforming our criminal justice system and has substantively helped achieve the liberation of thousands of people from unjust incarceration,” the statement said.
But the truth is that the two men have been political allies for more than two decades, long before Kushner’s professed change of heart, and even during Kushner’s darkest years. Booker’s statement skips over all that.
Kushner has backed Booker since his first campaign for mayor of Newark in 2002, when Kushner was a dominant political donor in New Jersey, and among the party’s biggest donors nationally. Kushner is the father of Jared Kushner, who is married to President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. Trump pardoned Charlie Kushner in 2020.
When Charlie Kushner faced sentencing in 2005, then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie asked for two years, saying that Kushner was unrepentant. But Booker wrote a letter to federal judge Jose Linares pleading for leniency, citing Kushner’s expansive charity work.
“Charlie has helped fuel my hope, as well as made me believe that even in the questionable world of New Jersey politics, there are still spirits who don’t simply act in their self-interest,” Booker wrote.
Booker is a rare political talent and may take another shot at the presidency in 2028. After this vote, there was chatter on social media saying it could tarnish his cred as a Trump-fighter, but I doubt that will stick. His marathon speech on the Senate floor, when he scorched Trump for 25 hours, a new record, gave Democrats a needed jolt. That’s the more memorable moment.
And it’s easy to see why Booker spun this one out of shape. The Kushner story is ugly. Brace yourself.
It dates back to 2003, when Kushner was in a court fight with his siblings over the family fortune, a real estate empire worth as much as $2 billion. At the time, the FBI was investigating Kushner’s illegal political donations, and Kushner’s own sister agreed to offer evidence against him.
That apparently caused Charlie to lose his mind. He responded by hiring a prostitute to seduce his sister’s husband, Billy Schulder, and then he sent the tape to her home during a family party.
One detail I can’t forget: Charlie considered sending copies to his sister’s children, his own nieces and nephews, to show them what Daddy was up to in that hotel with that young lady. He was talked out of it by the thug he had hired to execute this lurid scheme.
Yes, the hired thug was the one with scruples. Not the ambassador.
I’ve covered Jersey politics for 30 years, so I’ve seen my share of depraved corruption, worse than Kushner’s crime. The latest was Sen. Robert Menendez’s conviction for taking gold bars and a new Mercedes as bribes to help the dictatorship in Egypt evade restrictions on military aid tied to torture.
Maybe Kushner has changed, as he claims.
Prison can do that. Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who resigned amid scandal in 2004, has spent two decades helping former prisoners find jobs, housing and health care. Kushner hired a bunch of them, McGreevey told me a few years back, adding that Kushner was visiting prisoners regularly, on the down-low.
“He was a regular visitor to Rikers Island, working with young men there,” McGreevey said. “Charlie’s been doing this every Friday, quietly.”
I’m all for second chances. But to me, that means that when you’ve paid your debt by serving time, you deserve your freedom, along with a fair shot at a decent life.
It doesn’t mean you deserve to be an ambassador in Paris, living in a 19th-century mansion near the Champs-Elysées, famous for its formal gardens out back. This man should not have that job.
And Booker’s attempt to rewrite history is a fake. That’s no major crime. But don’t be fooled. His support for Kushner is a lifelong habit.
Moran is a national political columnist for Advance Local and the former editorial page editor/columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be emailed at aquinas1222@gmail.com.