This appears to be just as horrible as we’d worried.

• The Russian government attempted to influence the US election in Trump’s favor. By all the evidence, they succeeded.
• The Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia closely during the same time Russia was push to election toward Trump.

• The FBI knew about the contacts between Trump associates and Russia, but chose not to divulge them. At the same time, the FBI did choose to divulge the investigation into Hillary Clinton, the detailed results, FBI Director Comey’s editorial opinions about her behavior, and, only a few days before the election, the discovery of Weiner laptop emails. All of these disclosures were against department policy.
• Trump was informed that his National Security Advisor was offering concessions to the Russians and lying about it. He did nothing, allowing Mike Pence to testify that false impression to the press. When the falsehood was revealed, Trump denied knowing about the lies. He suppressed any followup investigation, professing his ‘trust’ for Flynn. All the evidence is that Michael Flynn was negotiating under Trump’s direction.

I expect we’ll see more surprises before the week is out.

Suppose this keeps going. Suppose we find out that Russia put Trump into office with his cooperation, and that he promised them special goodies if they got him in. Suppose we get the evidence to prove that charge. Suppose the investigation doesn’t get tangled in the politics, the Republicans decide the nation is more important than their individual success, and everyone works together like we did during Watergate. Suppose all this happens, the truth comes out in its unvarnished and grubby detail, and we uncover that the entire Trump team were only elected because they committed high crimes.

There is no way to fix this. The constitution won’t simply give the presidency to Hillary. There won’t be any special election. There is no ‘do-over’ like that in US law. The only remedy in the constitution (besides the next election) is impeachment.

If the President were impeached and convicted, the Vice President would move into the office. After that, the line of succession is this:

Speaker of the House: Paul Ryan
President pro tempore of the Senate: Orrin Hatch
Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson
Secretary of the Treasury: Steven Mnuchin
Secretary of Defense: James Mattis
Attorney General: Jeff Sessions
Secretary of the Interior: Kevin Haugrud

None of these options will restore our government. All of them will reward the groups that rigged the last election.