President Donald Trump has always walked a thin line between right and wrong in business and now he has transferred his skills to pushing the boundaries in The White House.
His style seems to favour brinkmanship and confrontation rather than politics and diplomacy.
But his alleged hint to drop an investigation into his election team’s links with Moscow led to the firing of an FBI chief.
That caused a stir, because although a president has the power of hire and fire as chief executive of the government, it’s rarely wielded. The problem was not so much the sacking as the lame excuses that followed and the revelation the FBI has a memo detailing the conversation that does not exactly report the meeting going as Trump explained.
The Russian thing, as he calls it, is a very bad thing for Trump and seems unlikely to go away.
What is impeachment?
The ugly spectre of impeachment is rearing over Trump, but exactly how do you impeach a president and what does it mean?
No president has ever left office because of impeachment – Richard Nixon was the closest following the Watergate scandal but he resigned before the verdict was delivered. Three others, including Bill Clinton, were found not guilty.
In the US, the House of Representatives must formally issue a criminal indictment against the president.
In Trump’s case lawyers are debating if asking the FBI to drop inquiries into one of his aides links with Moscow over rigged election claims is enough. Some say yes, while others say Trump’s criminal intent would need proving and what has been released so far is not enough.
Will Trump be impeached?
Impeachment is the start of the process of removing the president.
The next step is the Senate voting to convict the president of the impeachment charge. Two thirds of senators have to give a majority vote for the impeachment to carry.
Al Green, who sits in the House of Representatives has triggered the impeachment debate by calling on voters to get behind the move.
Will Trump be impeached? Probably not despite his political risk-taking. Too many Republicans fear they would go down with him after pinning their careers on his coat tails.