在一系列国会听证会、多年的公众辩论和无数阴谋论之后，人们很容易忘记共和党人当初为什么要针对前特别检察官杰克·史密斯。
After a series of congressional hearings, years of public debate and countless conspiracy theories, it’s easy to forget why Republicans went after former special counsel Jack Smith in the first place.
2023年6月，史密斯及其团队公布了对唐纳德·特朗普的多项刑事起诉，这是当时这位前总统机密文件丑闻的一部分。两个月后，史密斯进一步行动，对这位共和党人提出了第二项刑事起诉，重点指控特朗普在试图推翻2020年总统选举期间涉嫌犯下的重罪。
In June 2023, Smith and his team unveiled a multicount criminal indictment against Donald Trump as part of the then-former president’s classified documents scandal. Two months later, Smith went further, presenting a second criminal indictment against the Republican, highlighting the alleged felonies Trump committed while trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
特朗普的共和党盟友不仅谴责这些案件、无视大量证据，还炮制了一套离奇的反叙事：他们声称，史密斯或许是一位经验丰富、能力出众的检察官，但他实际上是一场秘密阴谋的一部分，执意通过不公正、不合法且本质上滥权的程序来摧毁特朗普。
Trump’s GOP allies didn’t just condemn the cases and ignore the voluminous evidence, they also concocted a bizarre counternarrative: Smith might an experienced and capable prosecutor, they said, but he’s actually part of a secret plot hell-bent on destroying Trump by way of an unjust, illegitimate and inherently abusive process.
事实上，该党及其盟友对这一反叙事如此执着，以至于共和党官员发起了一项多层面的调查，表面上是为了证明他们对这位前特别检察官及其在一场站不住脚的“政治迫害”中所扮演核心角色的毫无根据的说法。有鉴于此，当史密斯出席参议院司法委员会作证时——这是自去年年底以来他第三次在共和党主导的小组面前露面——他首先聚焦于这场听证会表面上的主题：他的工作。
Indeed, the party and its allies were so committed to this counternarrative that Republican officials launched a multifaceted investigation, ostensibly to prove their baseless claims about the former special counsel and his integral role in an indefensible “witch hunt.”With this in mind, when Smith appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee — his third such appearance before a GOP-led panel since late last year — he began by focusing on the ostensible point of the hearing: his work.
“我们的调查确立了排除合理怀疑的证据，证明特朗普总统对我们国家犯下了严重罪行，”检察官在开场陈述中说。“如果今天有人问我，是否基于同样的事实起诉一位前总统，我会这么做，无论那位总统是共和党人还是民主党人……对特朗普总统的指控是证据的结果。”这份书面陈述说得通，不是因为其准确，而是因为史密斯假定自己到场是为了捍卫他担任特别检察官期间所作努力的实质内容。但这个假定并不完全正确——因为共和党人似乎并不特别有兴趣质疑他对总统提起的刑事案件。
“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in serious crimes against our nation,” the prosecutor said in his opening remarks. “If asked whether to prosecute a former president today based on the same facts, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat. … The charges against President Trump were the result of the evidence.”The written remarks made sense, not because they were accurate but because Smith assumed he was there to defend the substance of his efforts during his tenure as special counsel. But that assumption wasn’t altogether correct — because Republicans didn’t seem especially interested in contesting his criminal cases against the president at all.
据Politico报道，司法委员会共和党人周二几乎没有质疑史密斯针对特朗普试图颠覆2020年总统选举的刑事案实质内容。史密斯强化了他的主张，即特朗普对权力交接发动了前所未有的犯罪性攻击，试图破坏乔·拜登的胜利，然后利用2021年1月6日国会大厦骚乱——这场骚乱由他的支持者群体引发——来推进这一目标。
Politico reported Judiciary Committee Republicans did little Tuesday to challenge the substance of Smith’s criminal case against Trump for seeking to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Smith reinforced his contention that Trump mounted an unprecedented criminal assault on the transfer of power, seeking to derail Joe Biden’s victory and then capitalizing on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol — unleashed by a mob of his supporters — to further that goal.
史密斯还为他的团队工作进行了辩护，并谴责由特朗普领导的司法部决定解雇他们，称此举“非法”。他还以前所未有的力度论证，他所领导的调查实际上是由共和党证人推动的，这些证人因特朗普处理2020年大选的方式而与他决裂。
Smith also defended the work of his staff and decried the Trump-led Justice Department’s decision to fire them as “illegal.”And he made his most forceful case yet that the probe he led was actually fueled by Republican witnesses who broke from Trump over his handling of the 2020 election.
“很难理解我们的调查怎么会被视为党派性的，因为最有力的证人，那些在法治与非法治之间起到关键区别作用的人，都是共和党人，”史密斯解释说。
”It’s very hard to understand how our investigation can be viewed as partisan when the strongest witnesses, the people who were the difference between the rule of law and not, were Republicans,” Smith explained.
共和党参议员对调查程序提出质疑，并竭力以人身攻击的方式抹黑前特别检察官。但在三场不同的听证会上，众议院和参议院的共和党人自始至终都没有暗示特朗普对他所面临的刑事指控是无辜的。
GOP senators raised concerns about investigatory procedures and did their best to smear the former special counsel in personal terms. But across three separate hearings, House and Senate Republicans at no point suggested that Trump was innocent of the criminal charges he faced.
问题不在于总统的盟友做出了努力却功亏一篑；而在于这些党派人士甚至根本没有尝试去论证总统从未犯下那些被指控的重罪——这本身就充分说明了这些案件本身的实质。
It’s not that the president’s allies made an effort but fell short; it’s that these partisans didn’t even try to make the case that the president never committed those alleged felonies — which speaks volumes about the merits of the underlying cases.
司法委员会的一名共和党成员、密苏里州参议员乔什·霍利表示，他认为国会针对史密斯的调查已经走到了尽头。
One Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, said he believed the investigation into Smith had run its course in Congress.
“到了这个地步，我觉得我们知道的就是这些了，”他在听证会后对《政治报》说。
“At this point, I think we kind of know what we know,” he told Politico after the hearing.
而我们所知道的是，这场针对史密斯和前特别检察官办公室的漫长党派讨伐，是对时间和资源的极大浪费。
And what we know is that the lengthy partisan crusade against Smith and the former special counsel’s office was a profound waste of time and resources.
后记：共和党人甚至未能尝试质疑史密斯对特朗普指控的实质内容 MS NOW
The post Republicans failed to even try to challenge the substance of Smith’s case against Trump MS NOW