Since his inauguration, US President Donald Trump has been facing allegations of conspiracy with Moscow in the 2016 presidential election. Many current and former close associates of Trump have been ensnared in an investigation into whether the Trump campaign cooperated with the Russians to influence his election. FBI Director Robert Mueller made a few substantial steps including eight convicted fraud charges of Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.

Lynn Sweet, the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, approved of the process made so far.

“It’s clear there was Russian interference in the 2016 election,” she said. “It could be not at the exact table of the president, but still be the people around him.”

Lester Munson, principal of the international department at BGR Group, a leading government relations firm in Washington, DC, echoed Lynn's point and suggested that the reaction from the president's side tells a lot of his feelings.

“It’s extremely difficult to prosecute public officials for corruption,” said Munson. “If I were the president, I would be very concerned about the success that Mueller’s team has made.”

It seems that the president is as concerned as Munson suggested, given the fact that Trump is tweeting about the investigation on a daily basis. As Trump supporters see the whole prosecution as a process of delegitimizing the president, Simon Marks, the president and chief correspondent for Feature Story News, said that no one else but the president himself has taken an “enormous step down that road.” For instance, he contradicted himself about the reason to fire the former head of the FBI by admitting his intention to “head off questions about Russian interference” in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt.

According to Marks, Trump has never been able to explain why he is “so strangely beguiled” by Russian President Putin. However, some Russian scholars opposed to that point.

“Russia is not seeing any soft side of the US,” said Vladimir Golstein, who teaches Slavic Studies at Brown University. “On the contrary, Trump is now forced to be tough against Russia in this context.”

Golstein backed his point by citing that the US is “on the record of interfering in other countries’ governments” and is too strong to be interfered with by Russia.

“Even before Trump, the US has changed presidents and governments in 86 countries,” he said. “From the Russian side, people do not believe anything coming from Washington anyway.” Interestingly, although the foundation between Trump and Putin is thin, according to Golstein, Russians still prefer the current president over Hillary Clinton.

Marks proposed that the relationship between the Kremlin and Washington has not always been so bad. During the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, the two nations didn't treat each other as political pariahs as they do today.

As famed Watergate journalist Bob Woodward said about Trump in his book "Fear," the president was placed at a disadvantage, especially as his lack of consistency left him incapable of testifying. 

“Don’t testify,” Trump’s attorney once said to him, according to the book. “It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.”

However, there were also pushbacks from the White House, as the sources of the book are largely unrevealed. If not so, Lynn suggested, those "Deep Throats" will be forced to deny their words in public.

As the November midterm election approaches, experts have started discussing the possibility of impeaching Trump.

“This is the real test of Trump’s character and his agenda,” said Munson. “If we have a divided government, meaning a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Republican-controlled Senate, an impeachment process in the house is much more likely.”

But that doesn’t mean there's a great chance of seeing the president leave the White House. Munson gave a full prediction of the impeachment process, and stressed that even if Congress started the impeachment process and the trial is passed to the Senate, 67 votes are needed to remove the president from the house.

“That’s almost impossible,” said Munson. Nevertheless, should the president succeed in sticking to his desk, an impeachment is still going to be an earthquake right under his seat.

The Heat with Anand Naidoo is a 30-minute political talk show on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 7:00 a.m. BJT and 7:00 p.m. Eastern in the United States.

(If you want to contribute and have a specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)