This week, Capital Hill was rocked by a bombshell in the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election: Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted thirteen Russians for their role in compromising the US election process in favor of the Trump campaign. Although Mueller did not make a direct accusation against Trump himself, court papers state that Russians were in contact with numerous "unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign." The indicted Russians stole American identities and posed as political activists online, leveraging hot-button topics such as immigration and race to further divide the electorate. Russian specialists created hundreds of social media accounts for this purpose, and these accounts attracted hundreds of thousands of followers. Americans that subscribed to these accounts falsely assumed that they were communicating with fellow Americans. The accounts posed as Black Lives Matter supporters, Christian activists, the Tennessee Republican Party, anti-immigration lobbyists, and more. The ultimate goal of these agents was to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump and sabotage the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, with a network spanning from St. Petersburg to American social networks to the polls of battleground states.

The indictment was only one storm in a week full of them, as Trump was besieged on all fronts. In addition to the news of his campaign being compromised, he faced criticism for his response to national crises and his own public comments made both on Twitter and otherwise. When the country suffered yet another mass shooting at a Florida high school, leaving seventeen students dead, Trump's tweet of, "So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!" prompted massive backlash, especially from the parents of the students lost in the attack. He faced a series of phone calls from these parents and other students demanding concrete action on gun control to curtail such tragedies. By and large, the Republican response to the shooting has been to emphasize the need for prayer, recovery, and the recognition of mental health dangers. American high school students across the country are currently attempting to organize a nationwide walkout to protest the danger that they face in school from active shooters.

On the personal front, Trump continues to face media frenzy over his pre-presidential affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen admitted this week that he paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket in order to prevent her from speaking to the public about the affair. However, he insisted that Trump had no knowledge of this payment and that he himself was never reimbursed for the money. At the same time, The New Yorker has reported on yet another affair, this time between Trump and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal. Although these affairs do not compromise the president legally, they work to undermine the president's attempts at assuming a moral high ground in the face of myriad challenges.