Disgraced real estate developer Charles Kushner would meet with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker in an office stairwell during the time he was living in a halfway house in Newark, New Jersey, according to a new book.
The content of their talks was not relayed in Kushner, Inc., released Tuesday by author Vicky Ward, though the conversations followed the billionaire’s years-long financial backing for Booker, at the time a local politician.
The link between Booker and the felonious father of President Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner is likely to receive attention due to Booker’s bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Ward did not report whether the stairwell conversations occurred before or after Booker’s election as mayor of Newark, and a spokeswoman for Booker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kushner entered a Newark halfway house after he was released in April 2006 from federal prison, where he had served 14 months after pleading guilty to tax fraud, making illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering as part of a scandal involving paying a woman to seduce his brother-in-law before providing a tape to his sister.
Booker was elected mayor of Newark in May 2006, shortly after Kushner’s release from prison.
The elder Kushner had supported Booker’s unsuccessful 2002 candidacy for mayor, reportedly steering $50,000 to his bid. His opponent, four-term mayor Sharpe James, claimed Booker was “collaborating with Jews to take over Newark.”
Ward writes that the link continued in 2006, despite Kushner’s conviction.
“According to a source, during his stay [in Newark], Charlie was permitted to work from a nearby office, where Cory Booker, who became Newark mayor around that time and is now a U.S. senator, would meet with him on the stairway,” she wrote.
Kushner had been deeply linked to Democratic state politics, closely backing former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey. The family has long-standing animosity toward former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, for his role in prosecuting Kushner’s crimes.
Though they had a close relationship in the past, Kushner and Booker reportedly had a fissure after Booker, then a senator, supported former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which faced a Senate vote in 2015.
Ward writes that Kushner, “in front of people on a job site” had “shouted at Booker on the phone, saying he had ‘betrayed’ him.”
