Viewpoint: The clock is ticking on Donald Trump.

We are getting ever closer, inch by inch, foot by foot, yard by yard, to a moment like this one...

...and believe me, there will be whooping and hollering around the world when he does go down.

The announcement that a special counsel has been appointed to investigate the reported meddling in the US Presidential Election by Russia and whether Trump campaign associates or the campaign itself, collaborated with the meddling, has invariably thrown a spanner into the barely functional works of this White House.

We've heard a report that apparently Donald Trump went into his White House accomodations earlier on today, and apart from food and drink requests has not emerged since.  If he has any sense at all, which is unlikely, he'd head for Moscow on the first flight he could charter, and leave everybody else behind and go into hiding.  Unfortunately, he's too much of an egomaniac and spotlight hog to want to go into hiding for very long. 

The strangeness here, is although in the history of the USA, there have 15 people impeached at the federal level, the two presidents impeached, were both acquitted in the Senate, and both were Democrats.  Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton in 1999.  Richard Nixon was never actually impeached.  Articles of impeachment had been agreed by the House Judiciary Committee, but Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.

Whatever happens now, we are in territory that is reminiscent of Watergate, but also way greater than a bungled break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic Party.  The words "high treason" are being used in intelligence circles right now, and those words are not used lightly, or even at all.  But they are being used now.  This is a situation that may have to call for a completely new response, including possibly an election re-run, or a brand new election.  Nothing at this stage should be ruled out or in,  Everything is still on the table.

The only real question remaining is whether Trump's self-preservation instincts will overtake his grossly inflated ego, and make him head for the hills.  I'm not sure his ego will allow him to see how deep the quicksand is, or even that he is sinking in it.  And if that is the case, his whole administration might just go down with him.