Though it is still early in the cycle of scandal, observers say Trump was badly damaged this week when fired FBI director James Comey testified Trump pressured him to drop investigations.

Donald Trump is only four months into his presidency. He’s politically wounded, isolated from his own party, lacking many serious accomplishments, and faces a minefield of Russia-related investigations ahead. But will he wind up like Clinton, scarred but surviving, or like Nixon?

WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton was engulfed by scandalous allegations during the second half of his second term, and he rode it out. Richard Nixon was starting his second term, coming off one of the largest landslides in American history, when Watergate consumed his administration and lead to his resignation.


“It’s a disaster zone,” said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian. “When you have a former head of the FBI, a deeply respected person, going under oath and calling you a liar and having a White House press secretary hold sort of a hissy fit to say Trump is not a liar — it’s just bad. It’s bad sound bites, it’s bad visuals, and it’s damaging for Trump’s brand.”

It’s entirely plausible that special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, like the investigations that felled Nixon and nearly took down Clinton, will land Trump in deeper trouble.

“In Nixon’s case you had tapes; in Clinton’s case you had Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress,” Brinkley said. “In the Trump-Russia probe, we’re still missing that piece of dynamite evidence.”

In the West Wing, and among those closest to Trump, there was some relief as the week came to a close.

“Now that this has all passed, he can go back to doing what he promised he was going to do,” Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News on Thursday night.

But if this is a 1,000-page drama, we may only be only in the opening chapters. There are numerous questions remaining, chief among them, what former national security adviser Mike Flynn knows and why Trump went to such lengths to protect the national security adviser he had fired.


Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and top adviser, is expected to meet with Senate Intelligence Committee staff this month to discuss several topics, including his effort to establish a back channel with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his meetings with the head of a state-owned Russian bank.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is also scheduled to testify before Congress next week on a budget proposal, but lawmakers are likely to pose questions about his own contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Comey said on Thursday there are undisclosed reasons why Sessions’ involvement in Russia-related probes would be “problematic.” He reportedly told senators privately that Sessions may have had a third, previously undisclosed meeting with ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

“The Trump team took a couple of hits below the water line,” said David Gergen, who has served as a White House adviser to four presidents, including Nixon and Clinton. “The ship is still afloat. But it is damaged. And there are going to be other hits.”

Presidents typically have to scurry to win legislative accomplishments, with the crucial time coming in the first seven months of their tenure, and Trump’s ability to do so has been significantly damaged.

“Ultimately, the presidency is about power of persuasion, and his powers will be diminished by this. His credibility is under serious attack,” Gergen said. “Not only is this a distraction, but I think it’s a good chance it slows down his capacity to get things done in the Congress and perhaps around the world.”


The White House is now trying to make an inconsistent argument — on the one hand saying that Comey is an unreliable witness who cannot be trusted, and on the other pointing to parts of his testimony that they believe benefit the president.

Comey said that he told the president that he was not the target of the investigation. Comey also revealed that he ensured one of the memos he wrote after meeting with Trump got to a journalist.

“Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker!” Trump, who refrained from commenting on Thursday, wrote Friday morning on Twitter.

In a press conference in the Rose Garden on Friday afternoon, Trump accused Comey of lying under oath during his testimony.

“I didn’t say that,” Trump said of whether he asked Comey to stop the Flynn probe. “And there’d be nothing wrong if I did say it. . . . But I did not say that.”

He also denied that he asked for Comey’s loyalty.

“I hardly know the man,” he said. “I’m not going to ask him to pledge allegiance.”

Asked if he would testify under oath, Trump said, “One hundred percent.”

One challenge for Trump is that some 59 percent of Americans said in a recent Quinnipiac poll that he is not honest. And during Comey’s testimony on Thursday, even the Republicans who are closest to Trump were not aggressive in challenging Comey’s account.


At the close of the hearing, Senator Richard Burr — a Republican from North Carolina who backed Trump — thanked Comey for “being somebody that loves this country enough to tell it like it is.”

While no one predicts that a Republican-led Congress will begin impeachment proceedings against their party’s president, Trump is also lacking many defenders.

“Who is out there during the Comey hearings — besides the RNC because it’s their job and some campaign hacks from the campaign — who was out there? I don’t really know of anybody,” said Rick Tyler, a veteran Republican consultant. “There were no third-party people who were seen as honest brokers willing to stick their necks out there.”

Moving forward, it’s hard to predict where things will head — or how Trump will react. Unlike Nixon and Clinton, who were conventional politicians caught in a vise, Trump is unpredictable. But just months into his presidency, his political agenda is stalled.

“From a political history point of view, Donald Trump has become a lame-duck president,” Brinkley said. “Congress is at a standstill and nothing much is getting done. It’s been a surprisingly effective spring for the Democrats. The big story was once the repealing and replacing of Obamacare. Now not only does Obamacare stand, there’s not even oxygen in the room to talk about repealing and replacing it.”


Matt Viser can be reached at matt.viser@globe.com.