"It's like Forrest Gump won the presidency, but an evil, really f---ing stupid Forrest Gump,” the anonymous Republican moaned. “I say a lot of sh-- on TV defending him ... We're going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn't led.” Within a couple of days of that conversation, House Speaker Paul Ryan would announce he would not contest his seat in the November midterms. Ryan is one of 43 House Republicans to announce they are retiring, running for another office or resigning, the highest number in the party’s modern history. The Democratic Party needs to pick up 24 seats to seize the Republican majority. If this happens the Democrats will take over the Congress’s powerful investigative committees. More chillingly for Trump, they will finally have subpoena power over the tax records he refused to release during the election. Speaker of the House, Senator Paul Ryan, won't stand for re-election. Credit:AP Ryan says he is leaving office to spend more time with his teenage children. Most observers believe he also wants no part of such a potentially catastrophic loss for his party. Some saw his announcement as the final victory of Trumpism over the shattered remnants of the establishment of the Grand Old Party.

In a presidency whose signature feature is constant crisis it can be hard to distinguish moments of true import. But this past week has been one of them - for various tangled reasons - for the president, for his party, for Americans and for the world. It began with Trump’s personal lawyer being raided by the FBI. The legal war On Monday FBI agents, acting in part on a referral by the Special Prosecutor investigating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia in election tampering and has since sought to obstruct justice, raided the hotel room and offices of Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. They sought, among other things, communications between the two men and documents related Cohen’s payment of $130,000 to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen. Credit:AP In Trumpian terms, allegedly paying a porn star to remain silent about an alleged affair days before a presidential election might not seem like such a serious political problem. After all, Trump’s support among Republican voters has stayed solid in the face of worse allegations. But Cohen knows more about Trump’s life and business than anyone outside a few members of the President’s immediate family. He has been Trump’s fixer since around 2006. Loading “If somebody does something Mr Trump doesn't like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr Trump's benefit,” Cohen once said in an interview. “If you do something wrong, I'm going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I'm not going to let go until I'm finished.” In other words, if there are any proverbial bodies, Cohen either buried them himself or knows where they lie.

Further, the payment by Cohen to Daniels may constitute an illegal campaign donation, a crime carrying a sentence of up to five years. Obviously, if Trump has anything to hide, Cohen is not a man the President wants indebted to investigators or prosecutors. The raids compounded the substantial legal threats creeping ever closer to Trump, deftly outlined in a single startling paragraph in a New York Times report: “The searches open a new front for the Justice Department in its scrutiny of Mr Trump and his associates: His longtime lawyer is being investigated in Manhattan; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is facing scrutiny by prosecutors in Brooklyn; his campaign chairman is under indictment; his former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying; and a pair of former campaign aides are cooperating with Mr Mueller. Mr Mueller, meanwhile, wants to interview Mr Trump about possible obstruction of justice.” The raids also prompted an epic temper-tantrum by the President, according to numerous reports from the White House, which continues to leak like a sieve. Later that day as media gathered to record the start of a meeting between Trump, military leaders and national security staff to discuss a potential strike on Syria, the President described the raid on Cohen as “an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for”.

Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video He called the investigation against him a “witch hunt” and accused his own appointees at the FBI and the Department of Justice of bias. He accused Hillary Clinton of being a criminal, he raged at his own Attorney-General Jeff Sessions for (very properly) recusing himself from oversight of the case, and suggested again that he might sack either Mueller or the Deputy Attorney-General, Rod Rosenstein, to whom Mueller reports. These were themes he followed up with rage tweets the following morning. By then Cohen’s role as the deputy national finance chair of the Republican Party had disappeared from the GOP’s website. Trump later softened his stance on the Russia investigation, tweeting that he supported full cooperation with the Mueller inquiry, “Unlike the Clintons!” (The Clintons are not under investigation.)

The political war Those trying to hold the Congressional Republican Party together fear that if Trump sacks Mueller the party will finally and irreparably split, with the remnants of the so-called “Never Trump” movement potentially even voting with Democrats to impeach the President for obstructing the investigation. "I think it would be suicide for the President to fire him," the Iowa Republican senator Chuck Grassley told CNN. "I think the less the President says about this whole thing, the better off he will be. And I think Mueller is a person of stature and respected and I respect him.” Robert Mueller, the Justice Department's special counsel. Credit:AP

Another Republican, Senator Bob Corker, chimed in. “I have a lot of faith in Mueller and I’ve shared with the President it would be a tremendous mistake on his part to fire him,” he said according to a Bloomberg report. “I think it would end his presidency as he knows it. I don’t think he understands how vehemently people would respond to that, because we have faith in Mueller. We do not believe he is corrupt." As far back as last year Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said there would be "holy hell to pay" if Trump attempted to sack Mueller and this week there were reports that he would co-sponsor a bipartisan bill to protect Mueller until he had completed his work. This brings us to Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, a stalwart of the GOP establishment who now finds himself constantly providing cover to Trump. He continues to block any bill to protect Mueller from coming to a vote, telling reporters this week: "I haven't seen a clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed because I don't think that's going to happen, and that remains my view.” So why do so many Republicans publicly protect Trump while privately admitting to being appalled by many of his policies and his behaviour? In part it is because they - and their donors - back some of his policies. Trump has granted massive tax cuts to big business and wealthy individuals and thrilled Evangelicals with hardline anti-abortion judicial appointments.

But it is also due to the basic politics of the situation. Trump and his base brought them to power. Trump might have historically low popularity for a new president - particularly one presiding over such a healthy economy - but he still has the support of the majority of Republicans. The miserable Republican congressman who unloaded upon Erick Erickson in a supermarket this week laid it out clearly. Congressional Republicans fear they would be destroyed in primary races leading up to the November midterm elections by Trump supporters if they broke ranks too soon, he explained. But come November, and if Mueller is fired, he believes many would move to impeach the president. “I'd vote to impeach him myself. Most of us would, I think. Hell, all the Democrats would and you only need a majority in the House. If we're going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherf---er. Take him out with us and let Mike [Pence] take over.” Such an option, said the mystery shopper - who admitted that his own base still loves Trump - might have the benefit of hurting the Democrats. “They think they hate Trump. Mike is competent.” So far at least then, Congressional Republicans fear the wrath of Trump’s Twitter feed and his fans more than they do the judgement of history.

But elements of the party are activating to provide those who support the investigation with political cover. One prominent group of DC conservatives this week announced the formation of the group Republicans for the Rule of Law to lobby Congressional Republicans to back Mueller’s investigation and convince the party’s base that this is no “deep state conspiracy”. Its founding director, Sarah Longwell, told Fairfax Media that she did not know who the Safeway miserablist was - nor why “he chose to use that language “ - but confirmed his view that the future of the presidency depended on allowing due process to continue was common among Republicans in Congress. She said the future of their party depended on them finding the courage to come out and say so more forcefully. It was, she said, an “act of friendship” to the President to “aggressively inform him” that adherence to the rule of law, to its norms and traditions, was “a founding and fundamental” Republican standard. The war The current conflict in the Republican Party and chaos in the White House might normally be considered a threat to domestic political stability, but throughout the past week Trump has also been considering a military strike against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his use of chemical weapons against his own citizens. Such a move, which would be backed America’s western allies, is vehemently opposed by Assad’s chief sponsor, Vladimir Putin. In a very real sense then, Trump’s problems are the world’s.

Damaged buildings due to fighting and Syrian government airstrikes in the eastern Ghouta region of Syria. Credit:AP Even more more unnerving, Trump has no established bench of security advisors to turn to. His new National Security Advisor, the Bush-era hawk John Bolton, took office on Tuesday and promptly sacked his deputy. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, former CIA director Mike Pompeo, is yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Republicans comfort themselves that the Secretary of Defence, the esteemed former Marine general Jim Mattis remains “the adult in the room”. He has urged caution so far, telling a Thursday morning hearing of the House Armed Services Committee: “We are trying to stop the murder of innocent people. But on a strategic level, it’s how do we keep this from escalating out of control — if you get my drift on that.” Through it all Trump has banged away on his smartphone. “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!” he tweeted. The message was not only reckless and ugly in the face of possible conflict, it served to signal to Syria and Russia not only that a strike was imminent, but what weapons might be used, and therefore, from where they might be dispatched. Just an hour later he softened his stance, firing off another message, “Our relationship with Russia is worse now than it has ever been, and that includes the Cold War. There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy, something that would be very easy to do, and we need all nations to work together. Stop the arms race?” The following day, as though concerned about his previous messages, Trump was at it again. “Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?” he tweeted.