It feels as though the Russia investigation should be a proper noun by now. It dominates news headlines around the world, and the term seems to have similar attributes to a favorite tv show, sending Americans running to the TV for updates. .

But through all the legal jargon, criminal indictments and mixed messages sent by the president, it can be difficult to actually determine what the Russia investigation is and what it’s trying to prove.

It all began after the 2016 presidential election when US intelligence officials began investigating the possibility that Russian president Vladimir Putin meddled in the 2016 election. Officials came to the conclusion that Russian officials leaked illegally obtained information, influenced public opinion by doctoring and spreading false news stories, and tampered with election results.

However, the investigation didn’t stop there. After FBI director James Comey was fired by President Trump, the investigation was taken over by Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI. He began a special investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and whether Donald Trump or his presidential campaign helped the Russians in their attempts to sabotage the election.

When the bombshell news broke that Donald Trump was being investigated for possible collusion with the Russians, the public was shocked, but Donald Trump himself was not. He began blasting Twitter with messages that any collusion between him and Russia was a“ witch hunt”, a phrase he went on to tweet about  over 163 times.

Since the investigation began in May of 2017, it has already yielded dozens of indictments for federal crimes and at least eight guilty pleas held by many of Trump’s closest allies.

Most notable has been the indictment of four Trump associates. The first was Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, who was found guilty of 8 financial crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of justice.

The second was Michael Flynn, Trump’s first National Security Adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators under oath when asked if he had accepted money from foreign governments.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty to 8 counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. He told prosecutors that he violated finance laws at the discretion of Trump and “for the principal purpose of influencing” the 2016 presidential election. He will spend 3 years in prison for those violations as well as for lying to a Senate committee about efforts to build a Trump tower in Moscow, Russia.

Most recently has been the arrest of Roger Stone, a longtime Republican political campaign strategist used by Nixon, Reagan and now Trump. He is a self-described “dirty trickster”, and is known for his sly ways of digging up dirt on political opponents.

On January 24th, he was arrested in connection with Mueller’s investigation and charged with five counts of false statements, one count of obstructing a official proceeding, and one count of witness tampering. It is thought that he was one of the masterminds who worked with Wikileaks to release Hillary Clinton’s emails back in 2016.

Senior Sarah Pearce is unsure if Trump will face any punishments as a result of the investigation.

She states, “I would very surprised if Trump actually got into any amount of trouble during the investigation. I imagine years from now people will definitely talk about the investigation in that [a presidency-defining] way, but with the constant influx of ‘The New Thing Trump Did This Week’, it’s hard to put it into perspective..”

 For now, only time and the work of Robert Mueller will tell if Trump will survive this investigation.