For the past 18 months, the liberal media has dismissively mocked claims that then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign was spied upon during the 2016 election for alleged contacts and collusion with Russians, even as they’ve constantly hyped reports of alleged contacts and collusion.

That suddenly changed in recent weeks after it was revealed via FBI leaks that the bureau utilized an “informant” to question a handful of marginal campaign figures — George Papadopoulos and Carter Page — about their contacts with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

That revelation initially seemed to align with evidence of an “electronic communication” discovered by House Intelligence Committee investigators dated July 31, 2016, which appeared to mark the official beginning of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign.

But Byron York of the Washington Examiner conducted a review of the timeline of all that has been made known about that investigation over the past year or so, and reached the conclusion that the FBI’s investigation actually appears to have begun, perhaps unofficially, several months prior to that official communication in late July.

A recent story in The Washington Post asserted that the informant — a professor living in London named Stefan Halper — began to interact with Trump advisers “a few weeks before the opening of the investigation, when Page met the professor at the British symposium.”

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If that meeting and intelligence gathering occurred prior to the official opening of the investigation, that would indicate some sort of unofficial investigation was already underway, in York’s assessment.

York, following the work of Congressional investigators, traced steps back to March 21, 2016, when then-candidate Trump met with the editorial board of The Post and revealed to them a list of his foreign policy advisers — an admittedly thin list, given how the Republican establishment collective of foreign policy experts had largely shunned Trump’s campaign — which included the names of Papadopoulos and Page.

It would appear that the list of names was then noticed by the FBI, Department of Justice and broader Obama administration, as it is believed that then-Director James Comey and then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe briefed then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch about that list shortly thereafter.

York reported that Lynch informed the House Intelligence Committee that she had discussed with Comey and McCabe holding a “defensive briefing” with the Trump campaign to “alert them” that the campaign may have been compromised, but that briefing never took place.

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Such a briefing was reportedly even discussed and dismissed again among broader company in the “late spring” of 2016 during a meeting of the Obama administration’s National Security principals committee, which included the likes of the attorney general and the heads of the CIA, Defense Department, Homeland Security, State Department, Treasury Department, U.N. ambassador, White House chief of staff and more.

Thus, we can deduce that no later than the “late spring” of 2016 — which would essentially encompass the months of March through the “official” opening of the investigation in late July — the highest levels of the Obama administration were already keeping a close eye on the Trump campaign.

It wasn’t until some point in July that the infamous anti-Trump dossier complied by former British spy Christopher Steele — on behalf of Democrat-funded opposition research firm Fusion GPS — was initially submitted to the FBI.

It was also allegedly at some point in July that the FBI was made aware of a drunken conversation Papadopoulos allegedly had with an Australian diplomat in London in late May with regard to Russia’s supposed possession of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The dossier, the Papadopoulos conversation, as well as a speech delivered in Moscow by Page in July, had all previously been pointed to as the foundational impetus for the investigation into the Trump campaign. But as York pointed out, the investigation appears to have begun prior to all of that.

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Given how much the timeline of when the investigation into Trump started has already shifted so much over the past year, it would not be out of the question to wonder if it unofficially began even prior to the date pinpointed by York in March 2016.

In other words, it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising — though still quite shocking and scandalous — if we eventually learn that Obama’s people were using the powerful tools of the government to spy on Trump and his campaign from the get-go in 2015, if not earlier.

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