in 2007, real estate mogul Charles Kushner—father to New York Observer owner Jared Kushner and father-in-law to Trumpspawn Ivanka Trump—attended a business meeting accompanied by executives from Kushner Properties. At the other end of the table was none other than Anna Gristina, known these days as the Manhattan Madam.

When she wasn't busy (allegedly!) supplying hookers to "Big Apple power players," Gristina bought up a lot of property in upstate New York through a holding company called Sullivan Acquistions. And in 2007, when she wanted to unload some of it, she met with the elder Kushner. Nothing ever came of it. What's interesting about that meeting, though, is that New York Post reporter Jeane MacIntosh—who scored the first jailhouse interview with Gristina and subsequently confessed in a highly unusual story that Gristina had been a source of hers for years—wrote about it two weeks ago. But her bosses at the Post spiked the story.

Recall, dear reader, that Kushner's own Observer reported last month that Post editor Col Allan was named in wiretaps as a close friend of Gristina's, and that Allan subsequently denounced the Observer story as libelous and authorized his personal attorney to make a variety of (thus far empty) legal threats. (That's when MacIntosh wrote her odd story claiming the she, and not Allan, was Gristina's longtime friend at the Post.) So ask yourself: Why would the Post, whose editor is in the midst of a public pissing match with the Observer, not take the opportunity to embarrass Kushner with news that his own dad—which dad, you will recollect, admitted in court to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law in a bid to humiliate his sister—had met with and contemplated transacting business with the very madam that the Observer accused Allan of being cozy with?

One potential answer: Young Jared and Rupert Murdoch are quite close. Kushner made it known to the Post that he didn't think an old business meeting that didn't go anywhere was a story. We're sure that if he rang his pal and asked him to keep his father's name out this whole Gristina mess, Rupert would have obliged. MacIntosh, we hear, was furious at having her story spiked.

Oh, and surely you will remember that Observer's initial story about Allan and Gristina actually claimed that the New York Daily News had spiked a story on the relationship because newly appointed editor Colin Myler was an old News Corp. hand who used to be Allan's underling.

So, to recap: The Observer reported that the Daily News had suppressed a story about Allan's relationship to Gristina in order to protect Allan. That pissed off Allan. He threatened to sue the Observer. Then the Post suppressed a story about Gristina's relationship to Kushner's father in order to protect Kushner.

This town used to have good newspaper wars, until everyone started fucking each other and being friends.

MacIntosh didn't return emails or phone messages. Jared Kushner declined to speak on the record. In a statement, the Post said:

Jeane MacIntosh did talk to Jared Kushner regarding Anna Gristina's contacts with Charles Kushner in 2007, when the elder Kushner and executives from Kushner Properties met with Gristina to discuss the sale of a property in upstate New York. The company confirmed Gristina and Charles Kushner did meet. It was Col Allan's decision not to run the story, and only Col Allan's. His demand for a retraction and apology from the New York Observer for their libel against him stands and he continues to pursue legal remedies in the matter.

[Image via AP]