The businessman could be behind oustings of Chris Christie and two other senior team members, as he positions himself to influence Trump’s administration

One of the key men behind Donald Trump’s transition to power is a 35-year-old real estate mogul, businessman and publisher called Jared Kushner. He is also married to Trump’s influential daughter Ivanka, and is in line to be arguably the most powerful son-in-law to ever set foot in the White House.

During the latter stages of the campaign it was Kushner who effectively functioned as Trump’s campaign manager. He advised him on strategy, drafted his speeches and ran the candidate’s digital media campaign.

But eight days after Trump’s unexpected victory, Kushner is now at the centre of a messy and Shakespearean body-strewn transition process, variously described as infighting, a “Stalinist purge”, and a “knife fight”. On Friday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was abruptly sacked as head of the transition team and replaced with Trump’s vice-president-elect, Mike Pence.

Christie’s ousting is thought to be the result of a feud with Kushner. As a federal prosecutor, Christie prosecuted Kushner’s father, Charles, who was convicted and jailed on charges of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions. He got two years in jail, and was released after one. While he was in jail, Kushner took over the running of his father’s property business.

Earlier this week, two more senior members of Trump’s team were sacked. They were Mike Rogers, who had been handling national security, and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist and liaison with business and foreign governments. Both were allies of Christie.

Good-looking, tall and patrician, Kushner studied at Harvard and New York universities. (According to Daniel Golden, author of The Price of Admissions: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges, he was admitted to Harvard after his father donated $2.5m to the university.) At age 26, he was conducting his own mega-deals. In 2007, he bought an office building on Fifth Avenue for a record $1.8bn. Most of the cash involved in the acquisition was borrowed.



Kushner has one characteristic which sets him apart from Trump’s alt-right entourage: he’s Jewish. (Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism when they married in 2009; the couple have three children who they’re raising as Orthodox Jews.) Kushner has defended his father-in-law against persistent accusations of antisemitism, including in a notable piece published by the New York Observer, which he owns.



Trump has described his son-in-law as a “great guy”. The president-elect has also reportedly taken the unprecedented step of requesting security clearance for Kushner to attend top-secret presidential briefings, the first one of which was on Tuesday. It’s unclear if the request will be approved. It marks an astonishing departure and invites the accusation of nepotism.

Kushner’s options for a White House job are limited given his family ties to the president, Richard Painter, who served as President George W Bush’s White House ethics lawyer, told the Associated Press. Congress passed an anti-nepotism law in 1967 that prohibits the president from appointing a family member – including a son-in-law – to work in the office or agency they oversee. The measure was passed after President John F Kennedy appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, as attorney general.

But the law does not appear to prevent Kushner from serving as an unpaid adviser, and few doubt that Kushner will play a decisive role in shaping the Trump presidency, acting as policy adviser and gate-keeper. As Trump and Barack Obama met privately at the White House last week, Kushner strolled the mansion’s South Lawn, deep in conversation with Obama’s chief of staff. As Kushner walked through the bustling West Wing during Trump’s visit last week, he was heard asking Obama aides: “How many of these people stay?”, apparently blissfully unaware that the entire West Wing staff will leave at the end of Obama’s term.

His contacts already include Henry Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch; he has received foreign ambassadors. Like Trump, Kushner has never had a formal role in government, but he now appears set to be more important than many who do.