#OyVey Donald Trumps huge bear hug for Zion .....day two of his Presidency discussion on moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem!?!!! Zion holds its breath but hey it is nice getting a that warm hug with the anticipation of many, many more. .

There was something unsettling though, even hypocritical, with the way the Left reacted to Friedman’s appointment.





On September 9, 2003, at about 11:20 p.m., a Palestinian suicide bomber walked into Café Hillel on Emek Refaim Street in Jerusalem and blew himself up.

Seven Israelis were killed, including Dr. David Applebaum, head of the Shaare Zedek emergency room, and his daughter Nava. The two had gone out for one last cup of coffee before Nava’s wedding scheduled for the following day.

David Friedman, the man Donald Trump named last week as the new US ambassador to Israel, was in Jerusalem. Nava, 20 at the time, was supposed to marry a cousin of Friedman’s wife, and they had flown in from New York to join the celebrations.

Instead of a wedding, the guests ended up attending a double funeral for a father and daughter buried side-by-side in Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuhot cemetery.

Later that day, Friedman went for a walk through city.

Crossing the upscale neighborhood of Talbiyeh, he looked up at a skeleton of a building in the initial stages of construction and called the contractor’s number, posted on the sign outside.

The two made up to meet later that day.

They walked through the unfinished building until they got to one of the top floors. Friedman asked how much the floor would cost. The contractor threw out a sum and right there Friedman accepted. For the contractor, it was unreal: 2003 was the height of the second intifada, terrorist attacks were a regular occurrence throughout Israel, and real estate prices were at an all-time low. To find a customer willing to buy an entire floor was a dream come true.

But that is David Friedman. While media attention over the last week focused on the controversial and inappropriate comments he made about J Street, we shouldn’t forget the basics: Friedman is a proud Jew, a huge supporter of Israel, an American patriot, and most importantly when it comes to his new posting, a close confidant of the man who on January 20 will become the leader of the Free World.

This does not mean we should condone everything he says or writes. US ambassadors to Israel should find a way to work with all Jewish-American organizations, even those with whom they might have personal and fundamental disagreements, like J Street.

But we should put this into perspective. What Friedman wrote was in his capacity as a private citizen. Now that he is the ambassador-designate, he likely knows that his personal politics will need to be cast aside. He no longer represents himself. Like all ambassadors, he serves at the pleasure of the president. He represents the president’s views and implements the president’s policies.

There was something unsettling though, even hypocritical, with the way the Left reacted to Friedman’s appointment. For The New York Times, it seemed like the end of days. According to the paper, Friedman’s appointment will “heighten regional tensions and undermine American leadership.”

Seriously? Friedman will undermine American leadership? Has the Times forgotten that President Barack Obama already undermined his own leadership in the Middle East, when he set red lines in Syria which disappeared the moment they were not enforced after being flagrantly violated? Just look at whom the regional Sunni states turn to today when they are in trouble – not to the US, but to Israel. Considering the growing Russian presence in the region and the lack of US involvement, I’m not sure just how much more that leadership can be undermined.

If anything, Friedman, as the representative of a newly- elected president, has the opportunity to rebuild America’s leadership and standing in the region. It won’t be an easy task considering the damage that has been done, and the general suspicion of Trump. But it is doable.

The hypocrisy was not limited to the press – it found its way into Israeli politics as well. Numerous Israeli lawmakers on the Left railed against the appointment. Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Gal-On, for example, said that Friedman “is a catastrophic choice” to serve as ambassador.

Has Gal-On forgotten that Friedman was nominated to his post by the president-elect of the United States? Does she not realize that as a member of the Knesset, her comment undermines Israel’s relationship with America? This is an even bigger hypocrisy considering the same Gal-On slammed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a year ago for addressing Congress to prevent the Iran deal. The prime minister, she said then, was harming US-Israeli relations. So basically, according to Gal-On, Netanyahu’s speech to Congress harmed ties with the US, but calling the man selected by the incoming president to serve as his official envoy to Israel a “catastrophe” doesn’t? Friedman can take some comfort knowing that this is not the first time the Left in America and Israel have opposed an ambassadorial appointment.

In 2013, when Netanyahu tapped Ron Dermer – his longtime aid – as the Israeli ambassador to the US, some on the Left viewed it as a slap to President Barack Obama’s face due to Dermer’s alleged support of Mitt Romney in the elections the year before. Peter Beinart, for example, wrote that Dermer is an unprofessional diplomat “who behaves in such undiplomatic fashion.”

In the end Washington did not fight the appointment, for the most part since the administration understood that Dermer, as ambassador, came with a valuable asset – a direct line of communication with the prime minister. Dermer was Netanyahu’s close confidant and someone who always had the prime minister’s ear (Dermer, by the way, had planned to return to Israel after the elections if Hillary Clinton had won. He is now staying in Washington with no end to his term in sight).

The same seems to be the case with Friedman. He is not a politician, nor a diplomat, but he comes from Trump’s inner circle. They have been friends for over 15 years. Friedman was one of the two witnesses who signed the ketuba of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and when Ivanka came to Israel a few years ago to look at investment opportunities, Friedman was by her side.

This closeness is an advantage for an ambassador, but even more so for the country where he or she is stationed. It means that when a message is given to an ambassador, it goes directly to that country’s leadership without intermediaries.

Considering the challenges the US and Israel are facing in the region, this kind of ambassador will likely come in handy.


***Will Donald Trump really move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? Based on media attention, this question seems to be at the heart of today’s US-Israeli alliance. It shouldn’t be.

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman was right when he said earlier this month that it would be a mistake to focus everything on the embassy, especially considering the more pressing issues the two countries need to tackle – Iran, the ongoing war in Syria, deadlock in the peace process with the Palestinians, and regional stability.

The fact that the embassy has not been in Jerusalem until now is a travesty. Jerusalem has been the Jewish people’s capital for millennia, and even considering diplomatic circumstances, there was never a reason the US Embassy couldn’t be in the western side of the city, the part that has been under Israeli control since the state was established in 1948.

Nevertheless, I question the practical gain from having it moved to Jerusalem. It’s true that it would be recognizing Israeli sovereignty over its capital, but not much more. Other countries are unlikely to follow suit – a number of ambassadors from Europe and Asia have told me so in recent weeks - and while it might seem to reflect a significant change in US-Israeli relations, it might mean the opposite.

Here is one scenario: Imagine Jordan’s King Abdullah calls Trump and explains to him that if the embassy is moved to Jerusalem, the streets of Amman will be swept up in riots that will threaten his regime’s survival. Seventy percent of Jordanians are Palestinian, and there are already hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country. The economic challenges Abdullah faces, combined with the threats from radical extremists, are daunting. He is one of the last American and Israeli allies still standing in the Middle East. Risking his regime needs to be handled delicately.

Here is another scenario: Trump receives a call from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who reminds the president that to successfully defeat ISIS, it would be a mistake to empower radicals by moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Salman might then call Rex Tillerson, the new secretary of state, who has strong ties in the Gulf from his nearly 40-year career at ExxonMobil.

What will Trump and Tillerson do then? Your guess is as good as mine.

I am not questioning Trump’s position on Israel. All indications are that he strongly supports the country. But when considering realpolitik, moving the embassy should not be the litmus test for whether someone supports the Jewish state or not. There are bigger issues that need to be dealt with and other considerations that need to be taken into account.

There is also a completely different possibility: Trump might be using the embassy and Friedman’s appointment to give Israel a bear hug, before he starts pressuring Netanyahu to make a deal with the Palestinians. He will first shower them with love and then lay on the pressure.

This would be the exact opposite of what happened with Obama. In 2009, Obama gave his famous Cairo speech and made a clear decision to create daylight between Israel and the US. When he then began pressuring Israel, it didn’t take much to turn Israeli and American-Jewish public opinion against him because of the Cairo speech.

The possibility that Trump might be thinking this far ahead is unlikely, even though he has said numerous times since winning the election that he wants to be the president who brokers the “ultimate deal” between Israel and the Palestinians.

Nevertheless, Israelis need to consider all possible scenarios.

One thing is for sure: in the meantime it’s nice to be getting a warm bear hug.

#RIPUSA The Iran Nuclear Deal . Appeal or Not to Appeal ? A delemma for Netanyahu

Israeli intelligence agencies find the agreement holds and Iran complies to its terms. If U.S. goes back on deal and conflict develops with Iran, other powers would leave Israel hanging, former Military Intelligence chief tells Haaretz.

Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Donald Trump, was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday, seems set to transform the global agenda, as well as the style in which decisions are made and implemented in Washington. When Trump promises the American people an “unpresidented” presidency, we have to believe him — even if the term or two he spends in office develop in unanticipated directions.

During his election campaign, Trump promised that after he takes office he will tear up the Vienna agreement on limiting Iran’s nuclear program that Tehran signed with the six powers in July 2015. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” last month that he has “at least five ideas in mind” for how Trump could undo the agreement and that he would reveal them when the two meet. Netanyahu is expected to be one of the first foreign leaders to meet with the new president.

Some figures in Israel’s defense establishment think differently. According to one intelligence assessment that was presented to Netanyahu recently, a U.S. decision to revoke the Vienna agreement could be a serious error.

Israeli intelligence organizations had a lot of criticism for what they saw as gaps and errors in the agreement when it was signed, but in the year and a half since then they seem to have concluded that it is quite stable and that Iran is in compliance with it, over all.

There is concern that revoking the pact would cause a chasm between Washington and the other signatories, most importantly Moscow and Beijing. In addition, a direct clash between Iran and the United States over the issue would mean forfeiting the agreement’s accomplishments: Iran’s commitment to refrain from creating nuclear atomic weapons, setting back its project by at least several years and extending the “breakout time” Tehran would need in order to produce a single nuclear weapon.

The heads of Israel’s army and other defense organizations have not spoken publicly about the possibility of revoking the agreement. Both it and any speculation about the Trump presidency are off limits even for background briefings with journalists. But former chiefs of Military Intelligence are free of such constraints, and two of them — Amos Yadlin and Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash — spoke with Haaretz this week. Both men believe Israel must take care not to spur Trump into revoking the agreement with Iran.

Yadlin, the executive director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (which holds its annual conference next week), says that Netanyahu has a rare opportunity to rectify the mistake he made in 2015 after the agreement was approved.

“Instead of fighting the agreement in Congress, the prime minister should have arrived at understandings with the Obama administration: He should have agreed to tighter security coordination, to tracking the Iranian moves jointly and to coordinating in secret the manner of response should it be discovered that they were violating the agreement,” Yadlin said, adding: “At that time there was also a missed opportunity to receive from the Americans security aid,” much more generous than the $38 billion over the next 10 years that President Barack Obama announced in September.

According to Yadlin, it is precisely because he did not sign the agreement that Trump will be able to take a tougher approach to Iran without undoing the pact.
“It is possible to persuade the incoming president to act to curb Iran’s activity in the production of ballistic missiles, its regional subversion and its aid to terror organizations. But precisely the act of cancelling the agreement will negate the legitimacy of our positions in the international community. When a conflict with Iran develops, the other powers will blame us for dragging Trump into doing this. They will not come to our aid,” Yadlin said.
Ze’evi-Farkash agrees with his successor that Iran’s missile testing opens it up to pressure.

 At the same time, he says, Netanyahu has to propose to Trump that he recruit Congress to his side, by approving the decision authorizing the president to take any measures necessary in the event the agreement is violated. “There is no reason to cancel the agreement now,” Ze’evi-Farkash says, “despite its flaws. The correct alternative lies in a coordinated American–Israeli move that will also prepare to deal with Iranian violations during the period of the agreement and also with the gradual lifting of the restrictions on Tehran, nine years from now.”

#RIPUSA ??? Donald Trump's AIPAC commitments.s Son-Law Jared Kushner earmarked to broker a Middle East Peace Deal..Good for Zion or will be backtrack out of these commitments as well..

At 22.30 Trump commits to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to "israel's eternal Capital Jerusalem. Yet Donald Trump's key appointments are not on the same page . 

Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis testified on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee, James Mattis, was asked on Thursday what the capital of Israel is. And he didn’t say Jerusalem.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked about Israel during the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, but Mattis refused to give him the answer he wanted.

“The capital of Israel that I go to, sir, is Tel Aviv, because that’s where all their government people are,” Mattis replied.

“Do you agree with me that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem?” asked Graham.

“Sir, right now, I stick with the U.S. policy,” said Mattis.

“Okay, do you support moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?”

“I would defer to the nominee for Secretary of State on that, sir.”

You can watch the full exchange here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heSCwC7_qHQ

Mattis’ refusal to say what Graham wanted him to — that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel—distinguishes him from both the president-elect and many other members of the incoming administration.

The U.S. embassy is currently located in Tel Aviv, as it has long been U.S. policy that the status of Jersualem should be decided in negotiations with Palestinians. Congress did order that the U.S. embassy in Israel be moved to Jerusalem in 1995, but the past three presidents have not done so due to concerns about security. The United Nations originally intended Eastern Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian state, and it still does not view Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump, however, disagrees. During the campaign, he said that if he became president, he would move the embassy to Jerusalem, which he called the “eternal capital of the Jewish people” in a speech before the American Israeli Public Affairs Comittee (AIPAC).

Since being elected, Trump has reaffirmed that view. His pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has also called Jerusalem “Israel’s eternal capital,” said he opposes the two-state solution, and doesn’t believe Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal. On Tuesday, CNN reportedthat the Trump team was considering having the U.S. ambassador to Israel live and work in Jerusalem, even while the embassy itself remains in Tel Aviv.

Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson, also recently criticized a speech by Secretary of State John Kerry condemning Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.

It’s not just Trump and his cabinet nominees who hold such views on Israel, as evidenced by Graham’s questioning. Last week, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (TX), Marco Rubio (FL), and Dean Heller (NV) introduced a bill that would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s official capital. The bill also requires the U.S. embassy in Israel to move there from Tel Aviv, or receive only 50 percent of its allotted funding until it does so.

Mattis told Graham on Thursday that he supports maintaining Israel’s military qualitative edge over all potential adversaries, views Hamas as a terrorist organization that would negotiate “only if forced to,” and is a proponent of the two-state solution. “If there’s another solution, I’d be happy to hear what it is,” he added.

Jared Kushner, who is married to US President-elect Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, will be the next American peace envoy to the Middle East.

Trump confirmed the appointment in an weekend interview with London’s Sunday Times.

“You know what? Jared is such a good lad, he will secure an Israel deal which no one else has managed to get. You know, he’s a natural talent, he is the top, he is a natural talent. You know what I’m talking about – a natural talent. He has an innate ability to make deals, everyone likes him,” Trump told the newspaper.

Kushner was said to have been one of Trump’s chief advisers on foreign policy during the election campaign.

In the past, Kushner’s family donated large sums of money to Jewish settlement projects in Judea and Samaria.

Jared Kushner
Senior Advisor to the President Designate
Taking office January 20, 2017
President	Donald Trump (elect)
Succeeding	Brian Deese Valerie Jarrett Shailagh Murray
Personal details
Born	Jared Corey Kushner January 10, 1981 (age 36) Livingston, New Jersey, U.S.
Political party	Republican Democratic (Formerly)
Spouse(s)	Ivanka Trump (m. 2009)
Relations	Joshua Kushner (brother) Murray Kushner (uncle)
Children	3
Parents	Charles Kushner Seryl Stadtmauer
Education	Harvard University (BA) New York University (MBA), (JD)
Religion	Modern Orthodox Judaism

Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American real estate investor and developer, publisher, and senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump. Together with Chief of Staff Reince Preibus and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, he forms Trump's leadership team. Kushner is said to be Donald Trump's most trusted advisor, showing unwavering loyalty to his father-in-law

He is principal owner of the real estate holding and development company Kushner Companies and of Observer Media, publisher of the weekly, on-line New York Observer. On January 9, 2017, Kushner was named to be a Senior White House Adviser to his father-in-law, President-elect Donald Trump. As a result, Kushner will resign as CEO of his family's real estate company and as publisher of the New York Observer. He will also divest "substantial assets."

Kushner is the son of American real estate developer Charles Kushner and is married to Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President-elect of the United States Donald Trump. He was among the senior advisors of Trump's presidential campaign, and developed Trump's digital media strategy.

In 2007, his father's company, Kushner Companies, made the most expensive single-building property purchase in US history, acquiring 666 Fifth Avenue. In 2011, Kushner brought in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner in the ownership of the building.

Early life and education

Kushner is the elder son of Seryl Kushner (née Stadtmauer) and real estate developer Charles Kushner, whose parents were Holocaust survivors who came to America from Poland in 1949.^] He has a brother, Joshua (also a businessman), and two sisters, Nicole and Dara. He is also a nephew of Murray Kushner, the owner of Kushner Real Estate Group. Kushner Real Estate Group is separate from Kushner Companies, which Murray Kushner started in 2000.

Kushner was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in New Jersey. He graduated from the Frisch School, a private, coed yeshiva high school in 1999. According to Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, he was an honors student and a member of the debate, hockey, and basketball teams while at Frisch.

In 2003, Kushner graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in sociology. According to journalist Daniel Golden, Kushner and his brother Joshua were admitted to Harvard after their father had made a $2.5 million donation to the university.

While a student at Harvard, Kushner was a member of the Fly Club and bought and sold buildings in Somerville, Massachusetts, earning a $20 million profit.

In 2007, Kushner graduated from New York University where he earned a J.D. and M.B.A.; his father had previously made a $3 million donation to NYU in 2001.^[ He interned at Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

Business career

Real estate

Kushner Companies purchased 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007 for $1.8 billion, the most expensive single property purchase in US history at the time.^[24]

In May 2015, Kushner purchased a majority stake of One Times Square for $295 million.

Kushner is a real estate investor and has increased the Kushner Companies presence in the New York City real estate market as a principal in his family's real estate company. His father, Charles Kushner, was arrested on charges of tax evasion, illegal campaign donations, and witness tampering in 2004 and was eventually convicted on all charges (by the then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie) and sentenced to two years in federal prison.

Kushner Companies purchased the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007, for a then-record price of $1.8 billion, most of it borrowed. However, following the property crash in 2008, the cash flow generated by the property was insufficient to cover its debt service, and the Kushners were forced to sell the retail portion in the building to Stanley Chera for more than $1 billion and bring in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner in the ownership of the building.

He assumed the role of CEO of Kushner Companies in 2008. On August 18, 2014, Kushner acquired a three-building apartment portfolio in Middle River, Maryland, for $37.9 million with Aion Partners. In 2013–14, he and his company acquired more than 11,000 units throughout New York, New Jersey, and the Baltimore area.In May 2015, he purchased 50.1% of the Times Square Building from Africa Israel Investments Ltd. for $295 million.

In 2015, Kushner scored spot No. 25 on Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 list ranking the most influential young people in business.

Newspaper publishing

At age 25, Kushner purchased the New York Observer, a weekly New York City newspaper, for $10 million,^[32] using money he says he earned during his college years by closing deals on residential buildings in Somerville, Massachusetts, with family members providing the backing for his investments

After purchasing the Observer, Kushner published it in tabloid format. Since then, he has been credited with increasing the Observer's online presence and expanding the Observer Media Group. Very young and with no substantial experience in journalism, Kushner could not establish a good relationship with the newspaper's veteran editor-in-chief, Peter W. Kaplan. “This guy doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” Kaplan remarked about Kushner, to colleagues, at the time. As a result of his differences with Kushner, Kaplan quit his position. Kaplan was followed by a series of short-lived successors until Kushner hired Elizabeth Spiers in 2011. In December 2011, the New York Post reported that the Observer expected to become profitable for the first time..Spiers left the newspaper in 2012. In January 2013, Kushner hired a new editor-in-chief, Ken Kurson. Kurson had been a consultant to Republican political candidates in New Jersey^[ and one-time member of Rudy Giuliani's unsuccessful 2008 presidential primary campaign.

According to Vanity Fair, under Kushner, the "Observer has lost virtually all of its cultural currency among New York’s elite, but the paper is now profitable and reporting traffic growth ... [it] boasts 6 million unique visitors per month, up from 1.3 million in January 2013". In April 2016, the New York Observer became one of only a handful of newspapers to officially endorse United States presidential candidate Donald Trump in the Republican primary, but the paper ended the campaign period by choosing not to back any presidential candidate at all.

Los Angeles Dodgers bid

In February 2012, Kushner put in a bid to acquire the MLB team the Los Angeles Dodgers. He withdrew his bid in March 2012.

Political activity

Donald Trump presidential campaign

From the outset of the presidential campaign of his father-in-law Donald Trump, Kushner was the architect of Trump's digital, online and social media campaigns, enlisting talent from Silicon Valley to run a 100-person social-media team dubbed "Project Alamo".^[4] Kushner has also helped as a speechwriter and was tasked with working to establish a plan for Trump's White House transition team should he be elected. He was for a time seen as Trump's de facto campaign manager, succeeding Corey Lewandowski, who was fired in part on Kushner's recommendation in June 2016. He has been intimately involved with campaign strategy, coordinating Trump's visit in late August to Mexico and he was believed to be responsible for the choice of Mike Pence as Trump's running mate. Kushner's "sprawling digital fundraising database and social media campaign" has been described as "the locus of his father-in-law’s presidential bid".

According to Eric Schmidt, "Jared Kushner is the biggest surprise of the 2016 election, Best I can tell, he actually ran the campaign and did it with essentially no resources."Eric Schmidt said, "Jared understood the online world in a way the traditional media folks didn't. He managed to assemble a presidential campaign on a shoestring using new technology and won. That's a big deal. Remember all those articles about how they had no money, no people, organizational structure? Well, they won, and Jared ran it."Peter Thiel said "If Trump was the CEO, Jared was effectively the chief operating officer.”

On July 5, 2016 Kushner wrote an open letter in the New York Observer addressing the controversy around a tweet from the Trump campaign containing allegedly antisemitic imagery. He was responding to his own paper's editorial by Dana Schwartz criticizing Kushner's involvement with the Trump campaign.^[50] In the letter, Kushner wrote, "In my opinion, accusations like “racist” and “anti-Semite” are being thrown around with a carelessness that risks rendering these words meaningless."

Donald Trump presidential transition

President-elect Trump and Japanese PM Shinzō Abe, November 17, 2016

During the presidential transition, Kushner was said to be his father-in-law's "confidant" and one of Donald Trump's closest advisors, even more so than Trump's four adult children Trump was reported to have requested the top-secret security clearance for him to attend the Presidential daily intelligence briefings as his staff-level companion, along with General Mike Flynn who already has the clearance.

The Washington Post, New York Times and numerous other national news authorities explain Kushner was an influential factor behind the firing of New Jersey governor Chris Christie as head of the transition team, as well as the dismissal from the Donald Trump transition team of anyone connected to Christie. A source familiar with the Trump campaign explained that “Jared doesn’t like Christie. He’s always held [the prosecution of his father, Charles Kushner] against Christie.”

The New York Times reports that Kushner is an admirer of the story The Count of Monte Cristo, which tells of an innocent man who seeks vengeance against people he thinks have wronged him.^] Kushner's and Chris Christie's lives became intertwined in 2005 when Jared Kushner was 24 years old, the New York Times reports. In 2005, Mr. Christie, then the United States attorney for New Jersey, sent Mr. Kushner’s father, Charles, to federal prison for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign donations.As the Times, CNN^] ad The Washington Post reported, the case involved a tawdry family feud: At one point, Charles Kushner sought to blackmail his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with the federal authorities, by hiring a woman to seduce him and videotape the encounter. Charles Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison, but he was released in 2006 after just 14 months in the federal penitentiary in Alabama and spent the remainder of his sentence in a New Jersey halfway house.

Kushner told Forbes that the reports that he was involved in Christie's dismissal were false: “Six months ago Governor Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing out him or his people.”

Donald Trump presidential administration

In January 2017, Kushner was named a Senior White House Advisor to President-elect Trump. Kushner's appointment has been questioned on the basis of a 1967 anti-nepotism law, but Kushner's attorney has asserted that the appointment is legal. Kushner plans to step down from his newspaper role in favor of his brother-in-law, Joseph Meyer.^[62]

Personal life

Kushner married Ivanka Trump, daughter of businessman and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, in a Jewish ceremony on October 25, 2009. Ivanka converted to Judaism under the auspices of a modern Orthodox rabbi before marrying Kushner. Kushner and Trump have three children.