AP Explains: End-game scenarios for the storm over President Trump

WASHINGTON — To those who think President Donald Trump should be driven from office, history would say: Good luck with that.

Removing a president between elections is tough by design, though mechanisms exist. Trump could simply ride out the storm, as various presidents in hot water have done — or find himself on a constitutional or political avenue to an exit.

Here’s a look at end-game scenarios that Trump foes dream about and allies may (or may not) have reason to worry about:

FIRST, THE ISSUE The beating heart of the matter is a memo James Comey wrote to himself and shared with others in the FBI weeks before Trump fired him as the bureau’s director. The memo alleges Trump asked him to end the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, who had just been removed as Trump’s national security adviser after lying about his Russia contacts. If true, the allegation may point to obstruction of justice — Watergate-level wrongdoing by a president. Or it may be judged to fall short of criminal obstruction.

More broadly, the FBI, several congressional committees and now a special counsel appointed Wednesday by the Justice Department are pressing ahead with investigations into possible coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials. The Comey memo had intensified calls for a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of it all, and those calls were answered — and the stakes raised — when former FBI chief Robert Mueller was named to lead that investigation. His position comes with wideranging powers of inquiry.

Meddling in a federal investigation by asking it to stop could qualify as obstructing justice. That’s if the president was trying “corruptly” to influence the Flynn probe. Intent is key, and can be hard to pin down. Congressional leaders are seeking a copy of the memo and other records that might exist on Trump’s interactions with Comey, and they want the ousted FBI chief to testify at hearings. The question will surely be central in Mueller’s work as well. Clinton on charges of lying under oath and obstructing justice in his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. The trial lasted five weeks in the Republican-controlled Senate, with senators sworn in as jurors, and ended with acquittal. The Senate split 50-50 on the charge of obstructing justice, well short of a two-thirds majority, and voted 55-45 that he was not guilty of perjury.