Donald Trump announced over the holiday weekend that he wants to add yet more unqualified rich people to serve in his administration, but this time with a fun and added twist: They're both members of his family.
On Saturday, Trump nominated Charles Kushner—a felon, real estate slumlord, and the father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner—to serve as ambassador to France.
And on Sunday, Trump announced he’d picked Massad Boulos—the billionaire father-in-law to his least-favorite child Tiffany Trump—to serve as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Selecting family members to serve in his administration would amount to a violation of anti-nepotism laws that other federal employees must operate under—not that Trump cares about that sort of thing.
Federal government employees shall not "appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position any individual who is a relative," according to 5 U.S. Code § 2302.
However, when Trump was in office the first time around, he got the Department of Justice to change its interpretation of the rules to allow him to hire his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, as senior advisers.
Both of them declined to take salaries in their positions in an effort to knock down accusations of nepotism in Trump. But a report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government found that the couple made as much as $640 million during their time in the White House, in large part thanks to their stake in the now-defunct Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., where people, including members of foreign governments, stayed and spent money in order to curry favor with Trump.
Trump also helped install his daughter-in-law Lara Trump—wife of failson Eric Trump—as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, where she helped get Trump through the presidential primary and then elected again in November.
The Associated Press reported in May that her tenure at the RNC caused friction with Republicans.
From the article:
Her installation has raised concerns among some Republicans who say the RNC is being run in ways that could harm its mandate to help all its candidates up and down the ballot. By prioritizing the presidential campaign, they said, the RNC might not be able to dedicate the necessary resources to assist other office seekers.
“It kind of suggests an expectation of complete, unabashed and, perhaps, a blind loyalty to the candidate,” said Marc Racicot, a former RNC chair who served as Montana’s governor for eight years.
Now, Donald Trump wants his children's in-laws to serve in his administration—both of whom have damaging baggage.
Reuters reported that Boulos’ own father-in-law funded the Free Patriotic Movement in Lebanon, which has ties with the terrorist group Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, Charles Kushner was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 24 months in prison for filing false tax returns, lying to the Federal Election Commission, and retaliating against a witness. Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his sister's husband and film him having sex to intimidate him into not testifying in a federal investigation into whether Kushner made illegal campaign contributions.
In December 2020, Trump pardoned Kushner, in part, according to the White House statement at the time, because it had the support of conservative activist Matt Schlapp, head of the American Conservative Union, who was later accused of sexual assault and settled a lawsuit over the claims for nearly half a million dollars.
While Boulos does not need to be confirmed to his advisory role, Kushner needs to win over a majority of senators in order to become ambassador to France.
It’s unclear whether Kushner’s shady past and the fact that his nomination is a blatant violation of anti-nepotism laws will hinder that in a GOP-controlled Senate that has excused far worse in order to give Trump what he wants.
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