This wasn't independent investigation on my part; it all came from a Twitter thread by Seth Abramson, but I wanted to present the dates he pointed out together with citations and excerpts from the indictment.
1) The earliest date given for the GRU's hacking operation was "on or about March 15th, 2016"...
...which was one day after George Papadopoulos (who has since pled guilty on the charge of lying to investigators about campaign-related matters) met with someone who claimed to have a connection to Russian government officials.
2) The indictment says the GRU operatives registered dcleaks.com to disseminate the stolen emails "on or about April 19th, 2016"...
...which was the same day that Paul Manafort (who has since been indicted for conspiracy against the United States) reportedly "took over the Trump campaign."
3) The dcleaks.com website was not launched, however, until "on or about June 8th, 2016"...
...which was one day before the infamous Trump Tower meeting between members of the Trump campaign (including Manafort and Donald Trump Jr.) and a Russian lawyer.
