The next time you are talking to a Washington reporter, make sure he is not colluding with the FBI.

Otherwise you could have big problems, the way Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, did following a meeting four Associated Press reporters had with Andrew Weisman, then chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section, and other FBI agents.

It was at this April 2017 meeting that the Washington AP reporters provided the FBI with information about Manafort, including the code of a locker that Manafort maintained at a storage facility in Virginia.

Two months later, prosecutor Weissman, a Hillary Clinton supporter, went to work for Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion probe. There he led the subsequent investigation and prosecution of Manafort in a failed effort to prove Trump Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

Manafort, however, was found guilty on five counts of tax and bank fraud and sentenced to 47 months in prison.

There is no evidence that this and other information turned over to Weissman by the Associated Press led to Manafort’s conviction — nor is there evidence that it did not.

But it does show that the media is willing to become assets of the FBI in the media-supported Democratic Party goal to drive Trump from office.

While the liberal media establishment, led by The New York Times and Washington Post, continue to bash Trump with anonymously sourced and phony stories — which are aped by the three national television networks — this is the first time reporters have been found to have provided and swapped anti-Trump information with the FBI.

And it only became known — but was not reported on by the AP or anyone else — as a result of a Freedom of Information ACT request against the Justice Department by Judicial Watch, the non-profit government watchdog.

The disheartening thing about the FBI documents on the 2017 meeting, which were released by Judicial Watch last week, is that neither the meeting, nor the release of documents showing reporters cooperating with the FBI, were reported on by the Associated Press or anyone else.

“Democracy dies in darkness” is the slogan of the Washington Post. Yes, surely it does, especially when the media keeps the public in the dark, as the Associated Press and its subscribers did on this story.

Reporters are supposed to obtain and disseminate information — including leaks — for the public from investigative, government and political sources, not provide it. Such practices of colluding with sources turns journalism on its head.

The AP prides itself on its objectivity and as the definitive source for independent journalism in this country and around the world. Newspapers, radio and television broadcasters depend on it.

Yet, hardly anything would have come out about AP opening its notebooks to the FBI had not Judicial Watch gained release of two heavily redacted FBI documents, as well as hand-written notes, about the meeting among the four reporters, two FBI agents and Weissman.

The FBI said, “The purpose of the meeting, as it was explained to SSA (Supervisory Special Agent) was to obtain documents from the AP reporters that were related to their investigative reports on Paul Manafort.”

“The AP reporters advised that they had located a storage facility in Virginia that belonged to Manafort.” It contained boxes of records, including information about the Ukraine, the report said. The reporters provided the FBI with the code number of the locker, which they said was paid for through money from the Ukraine.

The reporters told the FBI that Manafort had received $60 million to $80 million for his work in the Ukraine. They told the FBI that they believed Manafort was in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Emptying their notebooks to the FBI, the reporters outlined 10 areas that “they felt should be followed up on.” These included Manafort’s alleged business and political dealings in the Ukraine, Montenegro, Cyprus, the Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere

While it is one thing for reporters to interact with potential sources — especially in the incestuous Washington world of politics and journalism — it is quite another for reporters to become assets of federal investigators, and then hide it from the public.

Democracy dies in darkness all right, the darkness of modern-day “journalism,” where reporters are partisan activists working as tools of the FBI to help the Democrats destroy a president they hate.

How bad is it? These reporters will probably win the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding and courageous journalism.