Article snippet: The Daily Beast on Thursday reported that Nadler’s campaign consultant is Ezra Friedlander, a lobbyist and political consultant who runs outreach to the Orthodox Jewish community for Nadler’s campaign. However, he is also a public-relations executive whose newest client is the wife of Kirill Vyshinsky, the head of Russian state news media outlet RIA Novosti’s Ukrainian arm. That means Nadler has his own questionable ties to Russians, as well as that his campaign is paying a consultant that is doing lobbying work for a Russian propagandist. The propagandist, Vyshinsky, is actually now in a Ukrainian jail, where he faces treason charges after Ukrainian security forces raided RIA Novosti’s offices in Kiev, according to the Daily Beast. Ukrainian authorities have accused Vyshinsky of illegally fomenting support for the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 — which the U.S. strenuously opposed. According to documents filed with the Justice Department, Vyshinsky’s wife Irina hired Friedlander’s firm in November 2018 to attempt to secure her husband’s release. Friedlander said that neither RIA Novosti or any other independent entity is paying him for that work, according to the Daily Beast. Friedlander frame his work for Vyshinsky as protecting a journalist — even though he works for Russian state media. “Protecting the rights of journalists is so front and center to my core belief system,” Friedlander told the Daily Beast in an interview. “To me, if you’re a journalist ... Link to the full article to read more