Neither the President or Mrs. Clinton had won the respective nominations of their Partys, and the Primary Season was still undecided when this crap play began. So clever! No one ever seems to line these events into the timeline as should be done, just as no one seems to remember the huge deportation of Russian "diplomats" immediately after the election, something that always failed the smell test.
The fact is that the collusion narrative being mostly a cover-up has been obvious since before the Electoral College ballots were counted on the House Floor in December 2016.