上周，佐治亚州选举委员会致函，要求司法部在中期选举前介入。如果相关要求付诸实施，该委员会临时提出的要求将在现场提前投票开始前数日扰乱该州的投票体系，并为唐纳德·特朗普总统及其盟友再次散播选举欺诈的虚假说法提供新的燃料。
Georgia Board of Elections sent a letter last week seeking the Justice Department’s intervention ahead of the midterms. If enacted, the board’s last-minute requests would upend the state’s voting system days before early in-person voting begins, providing fresh fuel for false claims of fraud from President Donald Trump and his allies.
如果总检察长托德·布兰奇决定介入，他可能不再只是出庭为特朗普此前操纵选举的行为辩护，而会成为一场对民主的新一轮全面攻击的积极参与者。
Attorney General Todd Blanche, should he decide to get involved, could potentially go from merely defending Trump’s previous election manipulation in court to being an active participant in a whole new assault on democracy.
正如我们在2020年所看到的，即便只是暗示存在不当行为，也足以助长拒绝承认选举结果的努力。
As we saw in 2020, even the suggestion of malfeasance is enough to bolster efforts to deny an election’s results.
五年多过去了，佐治亚州一直是特朗普阵营散播大规模选举欺诈虚假说法的重点地区。联邦调查局探员甚至在1月依据搜查和扣押令，对富尔顿县的2020年选举记录进行了搜查，这是对拜登击败特朗普一事展开的又一次调查。这场延续至今的纷争，使佐治亚州州务卿布拉德·拉芬斯珀格——他本人是共和党人，并拒绝了特朗普要求“找出”3万张选票的臭名昭著的要求——与该州主要由亲特朗普人士组成的选举委员会此后一直处于对立状态。
Georgia has remained a key focus for Trump World’s false claims of mass election fraud more than half a decade later. FBI agents even executed a search and seizure warrant in January Fulton County’s 2020 election records as part of yet another a probe into Joe Biden’s win over Trump. The ongoing struggle has placed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — himself a Republican who refused Trump’s infamous request to “find” 30,000 votes — and the state’s largely pro-Trump election board at odds ever since.
除此之外，该委员会的信函要求司法部阻止佐治亚州使用二维码统计选票，并迫使该州立即更新投票机软件，以修补潜在的安全漏洞。（信中还贬损了拉芬斯珀格，要求布兰奇“追究州务卿及其他任何负有责任的官员的责任”，查明是否可能发生过选举记录的篡改或销毁。）《亚特兰大宪法报》报道称，州官员一直忙于处理后一问题，但如今距离选举已太近，若要对委员会要求的系统进行重大修改，就没有足够时间确保紧急修补不会引发意外问题。
Among other things, the board’s letter asks the Department of Justice to block Georgia’s use of QR codes to tabulate ballots, and force the state to immediately update its voting machines’ software to patch a potential security flaw. (It also takes a swipe at Raffensperger, calling on Blanche to “hold the Secretary of State and any responsible officials accountable” for any potential alteration or destruction of election records that may have occurred.) the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported state officials have been working to address the latter point, but it’s far too close to the election to make the major changes the board requested without time to ensure an emergency fix doesn’t break something unexpected.
拉芬斯珀格的一名发言人在声明中表示，委员会成员“正试图在最后时刻制造混乱”。鉴于佐治亚州的政治立场日益偏向民主党，以及民主党在今年各项选举中呈现出的良好趋势，这种说法或许有一定道理。但即便司法部决定不采纳委员会的全部建议，只要其在这件事上采取任何行动，如果拉芬斯珀格继续抵制，就将为新一轮阴谋论打开大门。
A spokesperson for Raffensperger said in a statement that the board’s members are “trying to cause chaos at the 11th hour.”That may be true given the state’s increasingly purple tilt, and the promising trends for Democrats in this year’s races. But even if the DOJ decides not to heed all the board’s suggestions, any engagement on this front opens the door to a new round of conspiracy theories, should Raffensperger continue to resist.
正如我们在2020年看到的那样，“别把混乱带进来”——共和党选举官员公开批评本党，2026年10月2日。这项要求使布兰奇站到了一个他似乎一直极力回避的立场上。作为特朗普法律辩护团队的成员，他近两年来一直在华盛顿、纽约州和佛罗里达州的法庭上，为其委托人应对多项刑事起诉。唯独针对时任前总统及其在佐治亚州的盟友、企图推翻该州选举结果的庞大阴谋案，是在没有布兰奇参与的情况下推进的。
As we saw in 2020,‘DON’T INJECT CHAOS’ – GOP election official calls out his own party October 2, 2026 The request puts Blanche in a position that he has seemingly worked hard to avoid. He spent nearly two years in courtrooms as a member of Trump’s legal defense team working across indictments his client faced in Washington, New York and Florida. Only the sprawling conspiracy case against the then-former president and his allies in Georgia for attempting to overturn the state’s election results went forward without Blanche’s participation.
关键在于，布兰奇从不必在审判中为特朗普2020年当选后的行为进行辩护。辩方没有直接反驳证据和证人证言，而是主张总统对任内行为的豁免权不仅适用于民事案件，也适用于刑事案件。最终，最高法院表示同意，并将问题留给下级法院裁定：在1月6日冲击国会大厦事件发生之前，特朗普采取的哪些行为属于“公务行为”，哪些行为可以受到起诉。然而，特朗普在2024年赢得大选，使这一问题已无实际意义。
Crucially, Blanche never had to defend Trump’s post-2020 actions at trial. Rather than directly refute the evidence and witness testimony, the defense suggested that presidential immunity for acts taken in office extended not just to civil cases but to criminal cases as well. The Supreme Court ultimately agreed leaving it to the lower courts to determine which actions in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were “official acts” and which could be prosecuted — but Trump’s electoral victory in 2024 rendered the issue moot.
特朗普以任命布朗奇为副司法部长 rewarding his loyalty；今年春天其前任离职后，他又升至最高职位。美国公民自由联盟在7月的一份记录中称，他参与了一场针对选举诚信的持续攻击，曾“监督一系列不断升级的手段，包括不当获取选举记录、恐吓选举官员以及干预各州的选举管理工作”。
Trump rewarded Blanche’s loyalty by naming him deputy attorney general, rising to the top spot after his predecessor’s departure this spring. As the ACLU documented in July, he’s been part of an ongoing assault on election integrity, having “overseen escalating tactics to improperly obtain election records, intimidate election officials, and interfere with state election administration.”
然而，布兰奇并没有公开断言特朗普赢得了2020年大选。在其确认听证会上，布兰奇不知为何也没有被问及是否认为拜登赢得了大选。但在参议院确认任命前接受福克斯新闻采访时，他在拒绝承认特朗普败给拜登的同时，也对“让美国再次伟大”的坚定支持者适当降低了预期：“要查明2020年发生了什么，需要付出大量努力，”布朗奇说，“这需要大量传统的、老派的执法和警务工作，而这正是我们正在做的。我们还有优秀的检察官也在为此努力。我向美国人民保证，一旦我们有所发现——无论是提出指控、出具报告，还是公布调查结果——美国人民都会了解到我们查明了什么。”他补充道。
What he hasn’t done, however, is offer a full-throated claim that Trump won the 2020 election. Blanche somehow avoided being asked whether he believed Biden won during his confirmation hearing. But during a Fox News interview ahead of his Senate confirmation, he balanced a refusal to admit that Trump lost to Biden with managing expectations from MAGA true believers: “It takes a lot of work to uncover what happened in 2020,” Blanche stated. “It takes a lot of old, good-old-fashioned law enforcement, police work, which is what we’re doing, and we have great prosecutors working on it as well, and I assure the American people that as soon as we have something to say for it — whether it’s charges, whether it’s a report, whether it’s the results of an investigation — the American people will learn about what we uncovered,” he added.
从那时起，布兰奇基本上没有妨碍联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔，因为他重启了佐治亚州的调查，并重新分配了数百名特工参与此案。相反，他为调查的继续提供了掩护，并对不当行为的建议不屑一顾。上个月访问亚特兰大期间，司法部长向当地记者辩护说，富尔顿县的突袭行动是正在进行的刑事调查的必要条件：“有人认为我们这样做是为了邪恶目的。我们不是。”
Since then, Blanche has mostly stayed out of FBI Director Kash Patel’s way as he has resuscitated the Georgia investigation and reassigned hundreds of agents onto the case. He has instead provided cover for the probe to continue, waving off suggestions of impropriety. During a visit to Atlanta last month, the attorney general defended the Fulton County raid to local reporters as necessary for an ongoing criminal investigation: “There is this idea that we’re doing it for nefarious purposes. We’re not.”
完全相信选举委员会的要求比保持现状更有可能导致实际的剥夺选举权和可疑的结果。对布兰奇来说，最好的办法是把这一请求放在他的办公桌上，直到提前投票开始，然后再哀叹司法部采取行动为时已晚。他甚至可以承诺在11月之后更全面地调查此事。
Giving full credence to the election board’s requests would be more likely to result in actual disenfranchisement and questionable results than leaving the status quo in place. The best thing for Blanche to do would be to let this request sit on his desk until early voting begins, before lamenting that it’s too late for the department to act. He could even throw in a promise to investigate the matter more fully after November for good measure.
但如果布兰奇选择无视董事会的要求，他将面临特朗普愤怒的风险。
But if Blanche chooses to ignore the board’s requests, he risks facing Trump’s wrath.
《大西洋月刊》周五报道称，特朗普仍在期待联邦调查局的调查对他的政敌提出起诉，如果没有他们，“帕特尔和布兰奇的工作将岌岌可危”。（几名联邦调查局官员告诉《大西洋月刊》，其报道是“虚假的”，并为帕特尔辩护，但没有否认联邦调查局专注于重新调查2020年大选。）如果布兰奇默认佐治亚州选举委员会的信，他的地位可能会更加稳固--但美国民主将更加脆弱。
The Atlantic reported Friday that Trump is still expecting indictments of his political enemies to come from the FBI’s probe and that without them, “Patel’s and Blanche’s jobs would be on the line.” (Several FBI officials told The Atlantic that its reporting was “false” and defended Patel without denying the FBI’s focus on re-investigating the 2020 election.) Should Blanche acquiesce to the Georgia election board’s letter, his position would likely be a little more secure — but American democracy would be left that much more vulnerable.
托德·布兰奇（Todd Blanche）有一个重要的选择让MS NOW
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