Welcome to Pay Dirt—exclusive reporting and research from The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay on corruption, campaign finance, and influence-peddling in the nation’s capital. For Beast Inside members only.
As the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee goes all out in his investigation of President Donald Trump’s ties to Russian interests, one of his campaign consultants is working on behalf of a prominent employee of Russia’s foreign-propaganda apparatus.
Ezra Friedlander is a lobbyist and political consultant who runs outreach to the Orthodox Jewish community of behalf of New York Rep. Jerry Nadler’s campaign. He’s also a public-relations executive, and his newest client is the wife of Kirill Vyshinsky, the head of Russian media outlet RIA Novosti’s Ukrainian arm.