Trump's Russia troubles are just beginning, Watergate historian predicts

"If Donald Trump leaves office before four years are up, history will likely show the middle weeks of May 2017 as the turning point," writes Elizabeth Drew, author of a book about Watergate, in The New York Review of Books. His firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was overseeing the main investigation into Russian election-meddling and any ties to the Trump campaign, led to the hiring of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel. Mueller has already set up shop in a Justice Department building and is building up his staff and working on a budget for what could be a long, painful slog for the Trump White House.

Already, the investigation has reportedly reached the perimeter of the Oval Office, ensnaring Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. "If Trump has nothing to hide, he is certainly jumpy whenever the subject comes up and his evident worry about it has caused him to make some big mistakes," Drew writes, predicting that Trump's "troubles will continue to grow as the investigators keep on investigating and the increasingly appalled leakers keep on leaking." She continues by comparing Trump with Richard Nixon, who she says "was a lot smarter than Trump is" but made some similar mistakes:

Drew doesn't answer that question, which is likely unknowable. "What is knowable is that an increasingly agitated Donald Trump's hold on the presidency is beginning to slip," she concludes. You can read her entire argument at The New York Review of Books.

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