Jared Kushner may have just hit checkmate
For the past several weeks it’s become increasingly clear that Jared Kushner is in the kind of legal trouble that could send him to prison for a large portion of his life. It’s led to the wide expectation that Kushner will at least consider cutting a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Donald Trump. Kushner seemed to only have one thing still going for him, and now that’s just been taken off the table.
Kushner is facing legal trouble for having used his position in the White House to seek personal loans in apparent exchange for granting political favors to foreign and domestic entities. Now that the extent of his financially corrupt actions has been exposed, in addition to his other crimes including lying on his government security clearance forms, why hasn’t he raced to cut a plea deal? The most logical explanation is that he’s hoping his father-in-law Donald Trump will try to pardon him.
Legal experts disagree as to whether a presidential pardon of an alleged co-conspirator would be struck down by the courts; no president has ever tried it. But what is universally agreed upon is that the president cannot pardon anyone for state level crimes. USA Today just reported that Kushner’s family business has been routinely filing false paperwork in New York City with regard to rent controlled tenants (link). This changes everything.
We’ve already seen that Robert Mueller is working with people like New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to bring parallel state level charges against Trump-Russia defendants like Paul Manafort, which can’t be pardoned. It’s never been clear if this also applied to Jared Kushner. But his false paperwork violations in New York City fall under Schneiderman’s jurisdiction. If New York State can send Kushner to prison, then he’ll have no reason to place his bets on a pardon, and every motivation to cut a plea deal with Mueller.
