Hannity ‘Unofficially’ Advising Trump. When Did That Start?

Fox News host Sean Hannity is serving as an unofficial advisor to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, to the surprise of absolutely no one who spent an iota of time following Hannity during the past year.

The New York Times reports:

But Mr. Hannity is not only Mr. Trump’s biggest media booster; he also veers into the role of adviser. Several people I’ve spoken with over the last couple of weeks said Mr. Hannity had for months peppered Mr. Trump, his family members and advisers with suggestions on strategy and messaging.

So involved is Mr. Hannity that three separate denizens of the hall of mirrors that is Trump World told me they believed Mr. Hannity was behaving as if he wanted a role in a possible Trump administration — something he denied to me as laughable and contractually prohibitive in an interview on Friday.

Hannity didn’t even deny it when interviewed by the Times, saying: “Do I talk to my friend who I’ve known for years and speak my mind? I can’t not speak my mind.” He claimed that he hasn’t told Trump “anything privately that I don’t say publicly.”

Since Hannity hosts an opinion-driven show on Fox where he’s been blaring the Trump message for quite a while now; the news that he’s an unofficial advisor for Trump is not surprising. It does raise an important question, however:

Did @seanhannity let the Republican Candidates he interviewed before/during the Primaries know that he was a Trump Campaign Adviser?

— Tracy Jeffords (@TracyJeffords) August 22, 2016

“Several people I’ve spoken with over the last couple of weeks said Mr. Hannity had for months peppered Mr. Trump, his family members and advisers with suggestions on strategy and messaging.”

Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times

Throughout the primary, Hannity claimed to be a neutral figure allowing the candidates time to share their platforms and ideas, letting the audience decide. But it became increasingly obvious that Hannity was in the tank for Trump. As RedState blogger streiff noted in April, Hannity had interviewed Trump at least 41 times and asked him embarrassingly soft questions, including “If you win Florida and Ohio, you are well on your way to the nomination to be the Republican nominee for president. How would that make you feel?” and “I’m sure you wish you were wrong, Mr. Trump, but you were right. What did you see that maybe others didn’t see about what was happening in Brussels and Belgium?”

Hannity also excoriated Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) at key moments in the primary, as he slammed Rubio for his personal attacks against Trump and hammered Cruz for the supposed voterless victories in the primaries that weren’t actually voterless.

Conservatives who feel betrayed by Hannity for shilling his nationalist populist orange friend deserve to know if Hannity served as an advisor during the primaries, because if he did it would further undermine his credibility among conservatives.