I am confident now, even more so than I have been throughout the last year, that this nightmare presidency of Donald John Trump will end prematurely—and end soon. And I am thus also confident that this is the correct moment to end this series of commentaries.

The important stuff first.

There are seven routes in front of Trump. Each, inevitably, ends in his impeachment or resignation. The first, the likeliest, became a thousand times more likely with the Thanksgiving news of a possible deal between Robert Mueller and General Michael Flynn.

As I reported here as long ago as April 4, the most specifically qualified expert alive on the subject of prosecuting a president, my friend, the Nixon White Counsel John Dean, put it to me very simply. Mueller is not shooting down. Mueller does not make a deal with Flynn to get Paul Manafort. He does not make a deal with Flynn to get Jared Kushner. He does not make a deal with Flynn to get Trump Jr.

Mueller makes a deal with Flynn… to get Donald Trump. Period.

The Flynn deal report suggests Mueller has completely assembled the backbone of his case and is now just hanging the meat from it. And just as importantly, if Flynn has merely considered a deal from Mueller, it almost necessarily means Flynn either doesn’t believe he would get a pardon from Trump, or that Mueller—as I’ve also reported here— has succeeded in finding a way around Trump’s pardon power, and either of these near-certainties spell Trump’s doom.

So that’s the most obvious of the seven ways for Trump to go. Mueller really will get him on Russia. It will be ugly and it will tear this country nearly apart, but it will be necessary.

The second way is—as I’ve also repeatedly suggested here—that Mueller doesn’t really need to prove anything about Trump and Russian sabotage of the election. There seems to be so much obstruction of justice, from the firing of James Comey to the lies about Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russians, that it’s hard to pick out a key player in the Trump inner circle who couldn’t be guilty of it. Trump could be impeached on just obstruction of justice and a few lesser charges. Nixon was about to be. Or, there is the third way. We could be spared the trauma of a Russia impeachment or an obstruction of justice impeachment—as we were spared it with Nixon—if Trump is smart or just sufficiently scared and he resigns. Or if he isn’t, those around him who could still save themselves by selling him out, will force him to resign.

A modified version of this is, of course, the fourth possible outcome: that even if Mueller is months away from his denouement, the Republicans will impeach or remove Trump by spring purely to save their own asses.

Watch Now:

Trump Is Finished

The state elections in Virginia and Oklahoma earlier this month show what could face Republican incumbents nationwide next November. Not only were Democratic victories overwhelming, but half of them were little morality plays: the 26-year old lesbian beats the Republican in the district Trump won by nearly 40 points a year ago. The transgender candidate in Virginia beats the guy who wrote an anti-equality bathroom bill. The boyfriend of a news reporter shot to death on camera beats the Republican, pro N.R.A. candidate.