Donald Trump made countless startling statements during last year’s presidential campaign, but one—in Doral, Florida—may be coming back to haunt him. At a televised news conference on July 27, 2016, Trump delivered a direct message to Moscow. Not content with the fact that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee, the candidate stared straight into the camera and said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

The first reactions were explosive. They ranged from gleeful approval from his “lock her up” base, to widespread outrage among his critics (who were then and still are a solid majority of the American people). The critics said he was inviting the Kremlin to aid his campaign again. He was dropping hints that he might revoke Washington’s sanctions against Russia. He was mocking and denying his own country’s intelligence agencies, which had alerted everyone to Russia’s cyberattacks and propaganda. He was advocating that U.S. laws be broken.

A bit later, his spokespeople claimed that Trump was “joking.” And Trump himself altered his story slightly by saying that Russia should give Clinton’s missing emails to the FBI rather than to the press.

Trump’s message to Moscow was soon displaced by other shockers. And for more than a year—as Trump went on to win the election, and the media, congressional committees, and special counsel Robert Mueller all dug deeper into Russia’s interference—Trump’s open request to Moscow just hung there, amazingly, like some half-forgotten circus trick.

But the Trump–Russia story has grown more urgent lately, leading many to cast their minds back to Trump’s message in Doral. Consider just a few driving events from the past month alone: On December 1, Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing U.S. sanctions with Russia during the transition, in a deal with Mueller that confirmed Flynn is working with the FBI. On December 2, Trump told reporters, “There has been absolutely no collusion,” while it emerged that Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he fired him and when he told former FBI Director James Comey to ease up on Flynn. On December 3, Trump claimed the FBI’s reputation is “in tatters,” while Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said her group was building an obstruction of justice case against Trump. On December 7, FBI Director Christopher Wray faced concerted Republican attacks in Congress, with one congressman rattling off the names of FBI employees he suspected of “political bias.” And by December 13, Fox News and pro-Trump Republicans were in full cry against “political bias” and “corruption” in the Justice Department, the FBI, and Mueller’s office.