Your conclusion about Rosenstein and the FISA application makes sense and is key.
Doll,
The critical line is, "MSM covert link."
Yesterday, Trump met with the editor and publisher of the New York Times. Ostensibly the meeting was about their fears that Trump's rash and intemperate words were a danger to the First Amendment and to the lives of journalists. I think Trump responded as follows:
"Gentlemen, here is a folder of transcripts of contacts between your journalists and CIA Mockingbird personnel conducted at 4 AM almost daily via burner phones. These transcripts won't leave this office, but take a few minutes to read them and see how your newspaper is not only printing fake news, but is engaging in sedition and possibly treason."
"Now that you see what is going on under your very noses, you need to know that news will soon be coming out linking the Clinton Foundation, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic Party and former president Obama to crimes beyond imagining. The FBI, CIA and other federal agencies will be implicated. We're talking obstruction of justice, financial corruption, child trafficking, sedition and treason. When this happens, you will have a choice to make. You can continue covering up for these people and printing the fake news that Mockingbird sends you at 4 AM -- or you can recover your reputation as America's newspaper of record. Just keep in mind that people are going to prison and reputations will be ruined. The choice is yours."
I think that this is how the pieces are going to fit together.
The President would never have sat still and listened to Sulzberger whine away about his harsh criticism of the FAKE NEWS. I doubt Sulzberger would have wasted his time like that either.
POTUS Tweet: Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, Enemy of the People.
Ooh, I like your scenario.