The very same July 2016 press conference where Trump publicly solicited Russia's help in hacking Hillary Clinton’s emails also turned out to be Trump’s final press conference of the year.
But Trump suddenly going dark following that presser has gotten a lot more interesting with the release of Robert Mueller's 12 new indictments of Russian military officers for hacking the 2016 elections. Now we also know that Trump's July 27 "Russia, are you listening?" call to action came on the very same day (or damn close) to Russia's first attempt to penetrate 76 email addresses from the Clinton campaign domain.
Not only does that sound a tad too suspicious to be merely coincidental—just think about the fact that Donald Trump never gave another press conference for the rest of the year.
He was running for president for god's sake and he was the underdog candidate—giving press conferences is the name of the game. In fact, up until Trump went dark after his suspicious July 27 presser, he had given fully 17 press conferences that year. That summer, Trump had also grown fond of skewering Hillary for not giving a press conference in 250-plus days. (While Hillary was taking blows for that lack of press access, it's also not totally uncommon for a front-runner to limit access. Every interview is just another chance to make a mistake.)
But by contrast, Trump had gladly given several press conferences a month for the first half of 2016.
Now let's think about who was running Trump's campaign when he openly solicited Russia's help in winning the election and then his campaign muzzled him for the rest of the year: Paul Manafort.
Manafort—who is now in jail awaiting criminal trial because a judge determined he was witness tampering—was both Trump's campaign chair and de facto campaign manager in July of 2016.
Manafort and other Trump surrogates were also facing increasing questions about Trump's links to Russia around the time of Trump's final press conference for the year.
"Are there any ties between Mr. Trump, you or your campaign and Putin and his regime?" ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked on "This Week” July 24.
"No, there are not," Manafort said with a chuckle. "It's absurd and there's no basis to it."
Three days later, CBS News drilled down on Trump's failure to release his tax returns.
"He has nothing to do with Russia," Manafort assured CBS correspondents during that July 27 interview. They followed up by asking Manafort if Trump had any financial connections to Russian oligarchs.
"That's what he said—that's what I said," Manafort responded, stuttering slightly, "that's obviously what the proposition is." (It's not a convincing piece of television, to say the least.)
Whatever happened during that fateful July press conference and its immediate aftermath, someone decided it was best that Donald Trump stop holding press conferences. It likely wasn't Donald Trump—he clearly relished the coverage and the opportunity it gave him to antagonize the press.
Here’s a list of Trump’s 2016 conferences:
TRUMP PRESS CONFERENCES IN 2016
- 1/21/16 -- Las Vegas, Nevada
- 1/26/16 -- Marshalltown, Iowa
- 2/2/16 -- Milford, New Hampshire
- 2/15/16 -- Charleston, South Carolina
- 2/25/16 -- Ft Worth, Texas
- 3/1/16 -- Mar-a-Lago, Florida
- 3/5/16 -- West Palm Beach, Florida
- 3/8/16 -- Jupiter, Florida
- 3/11/16 -- Palm Beach, Florida
- 3/21/16 -- Washington D.C., Old Post Office Hotel
- 4/17/16 -- Staten Island, New York
- 4/27/16 -- Trump Tower, New York City
- 5/29/16 -- Bismarck, North Dakota
- 5/31/16 -- New York City
- 6/24/16 -- Turnberry, Scotland
- 6/25/16 -- Aberdeen, Scotland (There were three press “gaggles” on this day – one on each hole of his golf course. He took questions at each although they were not traditionally organized press conferences.)
- 7/27/16 -- Doral, Florida