LINK

NYT lays out all the details, but is too biased to come to the most logical conclusion. Trump is being witch hunted. Trump won the nomination on July 21st. By the 31st the investigation was underway

quote:
The agents summarized their highly unusual interview and sent word to Washington on Aug. 2, 2016, two days after the investigation was opened.

quote:
Such tactical discussions are reflected in one of Mr. Strzok’s most controversial texts, sent on Aug. 15, 2016, after a meeting in Mr. McCabe’s office.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected,” Mr. Strzok wrote, “but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

quote:
The F.B.I.’s thinking crystallized by mid-August, after the C.I.A. director at the time, John O. Brennan, shared intelligence with Mr. Comey showing that the Russian government was behind an attack on the 2016 presidential election.

quote:
In July, a retired British spy named Christopher Steele approached a friend in the F.B.I. overseas and provided reports linking Trump campaign officials to Russia. But the documents meandered around the F.B.I. organizational chart, former officials said. Only in mid-September, congressional investigators say, did the records reach the Crossfire Hurricane team.

quote:
They ultimately interviewed Mr. Papadopoulos in January 2017 and managed to keep it a secret, suggesting they could have done so much earlier.

quote:
Only about five Justice Department officials knew the full scope of the case, officials said, not the dozen or more who might normally be briefed on a major national security case.

Wonder why?

quote:
Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

And guess who one of those was? You got it, Strzok himself

In summary:
1) July 21 - Trump wins contested Rep. nomination
2) mid July - Steele begins looking to push his dossier
3) July 31 - FBI opens Russian investigation
4) Aug 15 - Strozok sends bobshell 'insurance policy' text
5) Aug 21 - Brennan 'shows' Comey evidence of Russian interference
6) mid Sept - FBI receives the dossier from McCain
7) Nov - Trump unexpectedly wins
8) Jan '17 - Comey leaks his dossier meeting with Trump
8) Jan - FBI FINALLY gets around to interviewing Pap

At each step, after Trump overcame overwhelming odds to get closer to being CIC, the FBI stepped up the pressure of the investigation

And of course this gem

quote:
some inside the F.B.I. and the Justice Department say that Mr. Comey should have seen the political storm coming and better sheltered the bureau. They question why he consolidated the Clinton and Trump investigations at headquarters, rather than in a field office. And they say he should not have relied on the same team for both cases. That put a bull’s-eye on the heart of the F.B.I.

It was plain and simple a Hooveresque attempt at controlling Trump. It backfired. Big league