Massad Boulos, left, and Charles Kushner. Photo by Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh
December 1, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump appointed two of his in-laws to prominent diplomatic roles that could shape his foreign policy in his second term.
On Saturday, he nominated Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump, as U.S. ambassador to France. Meanwhile, Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, was appointed as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Boulos, a billionaire with significant business interests in Nigeria and strong connections to various political factions in Lebanon, was a key emissary to Arab American voters during the presidential campaign. His close ties to the Trump family and new position set him up to be a central figure in post-war efforts for regional peace.
Boulos will join a Middle East team with ardent supporters of Israel — real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who was appointed as special envoy to the region, and Mike Huckabee, an evangelical hardliner and Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Charles Kushner, a convicted felon who received a pardon from Trump at the end of his first term, is likely to play a pivotal role in engaging with the French government. France is a key partner in enforcing the ceasefire in Lebanon and a vital ally in countering Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Trump’s children are not expected to take on official roles in the second administration. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Donald Jr., Trump’s oldest son, are offering behind-the-scenes advice during the transition.
Who is Massad Boulos?
Boulos, 53, was born to a Christian family in the village of Kfar Akka in Lebanon and moved to Texas as a teenager. After graduating from the University of Houston, he joined his family’s automotive business in Nigeria.
Boulos is well-connected within Lebanon’s Christian political circles, including with Suleiman Frangieh, a prominent Christian politician and Hezbollah’s favored candidate for the country’s presidency. Boulos’ father-in-law funded the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party aligned with Hezbollah. Boulos told Newsweek he is “not affiliated with any party in Lebanon.”
During this year’s presidential election, Boulos helped the Trump campaign court Arab and Muslim voters in the key battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania by promising them that Trump was committed to ending all the wars in the Middle East and bringing peace. Trump earned the endorsements of the Muslim mayor of Hamtramck, a town near Detroit with a large Arab American population, and a group of Muslim imams.
Boulos also served as an informal liaison between Trump and some leaders in the Middle East. The New York Times reported that Boulos met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the U.N. General Assembly in September to help build warm ties with Trump.
In an interview with Sky News, Boulos said Trump’s success in brokering the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab nations in the Middle East and the Gulf, resonated with voters dissatisfied with the Biden administration’s handling of the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. “They’ve seen the huge difference in the approach and the track record of the two administrations,” he said, “and they’ve seen Donald Trump, for four years in the White House there were no wars. He was the only president in modern history who didn’t start any war. He ended wars.”
Boulos also highlighted that Trump has both Jewish and Arab sons-in-law which reflects his character. “This shows you the type of person that Donald Trump is,” he told U.S. Arab Radio in June.
Who is Charles Kushner?
Kushner, 70, is a real estate developer and philanthropist, who has donated to numerous Jewish causes and, prior to 2016, the Democratic Party. He also made a $2.5 million donation to Harvard University the year before Jared was accepted into the Ivy League school.
The senior Kushner pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion in 2004, as well as additional counts of lying to the Federal Election Commission and retaliating against a federal witness. He admitted to hiring a prostitute to entrap his brother-in-law, who was a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation against Kushner, and then sending the video of the encounter to his sister.
He ultimately served 14 months in prison, and was released in August 2006. As a convicted felon, he was disbarred from practicing law in several states. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who prosecuted Kushner, called his crimes “loathsome” and “disgusting.” Trump pardoned Kushner during the final days of his first administration. Kushner was a major donor to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
In a memoir, published in 2022, Jared Kushner wrote that while his father initially declined an offer for clemency, a privilege given to the commander-in-chief and often used before leaving office, Trump surprised him in a Dec. 23 phone call, telling him, “Jared, I just signed a full pardon for your dad.”
“This brings me closure to a very hard period of my life,” Charles told his son afterward, according to the memoir. “I didn’t want to cause Donald any controversy. But truthfully, hearing this news makes me realize how much I really did want one.”
Jared Kushner, who said he visited his father in prison every week, never dreamed he would be having this conversation after 15 years. “I certainly never imagined that the president of the United States would grant my own father a pardon,” he wrote. “In that moment, I felt that only God’s hand could have written this real-life script, and that his plans are always bigger than ours.”
In the book, Kushner wrote about the positive treatment his dad received from fellow inmates in jail. He recounted one time when the older Kushner sat on the benches in the yard and an inmate yelled, “Hey, it’s Charles the Great!”
Jared Kushner wrote: “My dad turned to me and quipped, ‘Maybe I don’t want to leave here — no one in my company ever called me that.”
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