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Donald Trump, James Comey and 'this Russia thing' - the crises rocking the White House
If a week is a long time in politics, the past seven days must feel like an eternity for Donald Trump.
"This Russia thing", as the president called the investigations into his campaign's links with Moscow, has come to haunt the White House in recent weeks, while the spectre of the former FBI Director looms ever larger.
Here's a round up of the controversies that have rocked the White House recently.
Comey memo
The latest bombshell to hit the White House was the reported memo written by James Comey.
The former FBI director wrote the memo after he met in the Oval Office with Mr Trump, the day after the Republican president fired his national security adviser Michael Flynn on February 14 for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations last year with Russia's ambassador, Sergei Kislyak.
"I hope you can let this go," Mr Trump told Mr Comey, according to a source familiar with the contents of the memo.
The New York Times said that during the Oval Office meeting, Mr Trump condemned a series of government leaks to the news media and said the FBI director should consider prosecuting reporters for publishing classified information.
The White House quickly denied the report, saying in a statement it was "not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey."
Despite the denial, the reports prompted calls for an investigation and even led to talk of impeachement.
"The memo is powerful evidence of obstruction of justice and certainly merits immediate and prompt investigation by an independent special prosecutor," said Democratic U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.
Oval Office meeting
The scandal over the memo came hot on the heels of another explosive report that the president revealed classified information to the Russians.
US officials said Mr Trump shared details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak at a meeting last week.
The meeting took place a day after he fired Mr Comey.
Mr Trump was reportedly boasting about his access to classified intelligence when he made the disclosure. An excerpt from an official transcript of the meeting reveals that Mr Trump told them, "I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day."
The highly classified information about an Islamic State plot was collected by Israel, a crucial source of intelligence and close partner in the fight against some of the America's fiercest threats in the Middle East.
The Trump administration immediately rejected the claims as "false". "I was in the room, it didn't happen," H.R. McMaster, Mr Trump's national security adviser, told reporters outside the White House late on Monday.
A day later, however, Mr Trump appeared to contradict the denial by tweeting he had the "absolute right" to share the information for "humanitarian reasons" and because he wants Russia to step up its fight against Isil.
Firing of Comey
The firing of the FBI director - the man in charge of one of the investigations into the Trump campaign's links with Russia - sent shockwaves through Washington last Tuesday and drew comparisons with Richard Nixon.
The US president said in a letter to Mr Comey that he was "not able to effectively lead the bureau" and Mr Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails was given as the main reason for the dismissal.
The White House narrative, which had suggested the firing came after the urgent recommendation from the justice department, soon unravelled.
Reports emerged that he had been considering getting rid of him for some time before he admitted that the Russian investigation had been on his mind when he decided to fire him.
"In fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won," he said in an interview with NBC.
A day before he fired him, Mr Trump tweeted: "The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?" he wrote on Twitter on May 8."
Meanwhile, Mr Comey started fighting back. Associates of the FBI chief said the president summoned him to the White House two weeks after his inauguration and asked him to pledge his loyalty to him.
The FBI director declined to make that pledge, it has been claimed, and told him instead that he would be “honest” but not “reliable” in the political sense.
The former FBI director believes it was his reluctance to pledge loyalty that led to his eventual dismissal on Tuesday, two people who have heard Mr Comey’s account of the meeting told the New York Times.
FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe, who will lead the agency until a new director is hired, promised the Senate Intelligence Committee that Comey's firing will not affect the investigation and that he will notify the committee of any attempt to delay or derail it.
Senate investigations
As well as the FBI investigation into allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 election campaign to benefit Mr Trump, Mr Trump is also facing other probes.
Committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate, along with the US Department of Justice, are all known to be investigating. possible collusion between Russia and members of the Trump campaign.
Last Tuesday, federal prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas seeking business records from people who worked with Flynn when he was a private citizen.
A day later, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued the first subpoena in its Russia investigation, demanding documents from Mr Flynn after he declined to voluntarily comply with an earlier request.
The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee had raised concerns about the pace of the FBI inquiry before Comey's firing. The congressional probes are dependent on the intelligence produced by the FBI and other agencies.