The Russians have been investing in Trump since the 80s and have been unleashing aggressive Soviet-style propaganda campaigns (minus the communism part) across social media for years now. They were spending as much as $400k a month on payments to bloggers -- just online stuff -- in the run-up to the first Trump election.
Your timelines are a little off but to add more details:
Matt Christiansen, Tayler Hansen, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Lauren Southern are the subjects of the ongoing investigation.
$400k/month was paid out just for Tim Pool for repeating Russian talking points on the Tenet Media youtube channel which should have raised eyebrows for all parties.
