What does "proving willing" in 4th paragraph mean?




President Donald Trump’s tweets furiously criticizing special counsel Robert Mueller this weekend have initiated a new round of discussion about whether the president will finally fire Mueller, in an effort to halt the Russia investigation.

Trump took on Mueller by name for the first time on Twitter this Saturday, writing that “the Mueller probe should never have been started,” that it was not “fair” that “the Mueller team” had several Democratic prosecutors, and that the investigation was “a total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!” (This came the day after Trump’s Justice Department fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.)

Meanwhile, Trump’s personal lawyer John Dowd went a step further, telling the Daily Beast this weekend that the Justice Department should now “bring an end to” the “alleged Russia Collusion investigation” (though a later statement from White House lawyer Ty Cobb then tried to claim Trump “is not considering or discussing the firing of the Special Counsel”).

Now, all this could well be a PR strategy aimed at discrediting Mueller’s investigation rather than laying the groundwork for firing him. But liberals fear that a recent trend of Trump proving willing to resist advisers who counsel caution will finally lead to him pulling the trigger — and that he’ll get away with it, since a sycophantic Republican Congress would likely take little action in response.

Yet it’s worth keeping in mind that even though Trump has wanted Mueller gone and his investigation shut down for at least nine months — by one account, Trump actually tried to push Mueller out last June — he’s been either reticent or unable to actually make it happen so far. And it’s worth understanding the several reasons why that is.