Trump pardons former editor of Kushner-owned newspaper

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ken Kurson, a family friend of Donald Trump and editor of a New York newspaper once owned by the former U.S. president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, was among those pardoned by Trump in his final hours in office.

U.S. prosecutors in Brooklyn had in October charged Kurson, with cyberstalking related to his 2015 divorce, saying he sent threatening messages to victims, including someone he blamed for the breakdown of his marriage.

Kurson, a political consultant and former speechwriter for Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, served as editor in chief of the Kushner-owned newspaper The Observer from 2013 until he stepped down in 2017. The Observer endorsed Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Prosecutors began investigating Kurson in 2018 following a background check reportedly related to Trump's nomination of him to the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In announcing the pardon, the White House said the probe began only because of the nomination, and that Kurson's former wife had expressed "disgust" with his arrest.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)