David Zaikin: The International Man of Mystery

 

David Zaikin worked on Russian energy transactions, counselled Eastern European parties negotiated condominiums at Toronto's Trump Tower and collaborated with Michael Flynn's hirer.

Two individuals began visiting Washington more than two years ago to promote Turkey's agenda in the capital. They dined with dignitaries and recruited the help of powerful lobbying companies from both parties.

It was an ordinary Washington narrative, except for one detail: one of the guys hired the final lobbyist, Gen. Michael Flynn, then-campaign advisor to President Donald Trump, who was subsequently dismissed as national security adviser for lying about his discussions with Russia's ambassador.

As federal prosecutors look into Flynn's alleged failures to report foreign contacts, his client, a Turkish businessman called EkimAlptekin, has gotten a lot of attention. But the second pro-Turkey person has largely escaped public awareness thus far, making him a fascinating figure in the riddle surrounding foreign influence in Washington. Dmitri "David" Zaikin is not a registered foreign lobbyist and appears to have no ties to Turkey.

ProPublica POLITICO investigation

What he does have, according to a ProPublica-POLITICO investigation, is a lengthy history of collaborating with prominent Russian entrepreneurs and government officials on energy and mining projects. Zaikin's most recent political activity has been in Eastern Europe, where he has advised parties in Albania and Macedonia that have drifted toward the Kremlin.

Zaikin also has ties to Trump's business. David Zaikin negotiated transactions in one of the city's new high-rises, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, while working at a real estate brokerage in Toronto in the 2000s. Zaikin was also friends with a Russian lady who worked as the sole agent for one of Trump's Florida projects.

The disdain from the soviet nation

Mr. Zaikin's lawyer, Tara Plochocki of the firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, wrote to POLITICO, Mr. Zaikin reserves nothing but disdain for the Soviet Union, and whatever traces of it may still remain.

But Geoffrey P. Cowley, a British engineer who was Zaikin's business partner from 2010 until their divorce in 2016, told a different storey. Cowley claimed he never heard Zaikin say that his family had been mistreated or condemn the old Soviet Union.