人们很容易忘记，在去年早些时候的确认听证会上，卡什·帕特尔曾向参议员保证，在他领导下的联邦调查局“不会倒退”。他还补充说，该机构“不会受到政治化影响”。
It’s easy to forget that during his confirmation hearing early last year, Kash Patel assured senators that the FBI under his leadership “will not go backwards.”He added that there would be “no politicization” at the bureau.
近两年来，联邦调查局不仅是在回顾过去；《大西洋》杂志报道称，在领导该机构的、热衷于阴谋论的前播客主持人的坚持下，联邦调查局已变得“过度关注”唐纳德·特朗普在2020年选举中的失败，以及总统提出的各种选举阴谋论。文章指出：近几个月来，帕特尔已听取了联邦调查局在亚利桑那州、佛罗里达州、新泽西州、俄亥俄州及其他地区开展的“选举公正性”调查简报。
Nearly two years later, the FBI isn’t merely looking backward; The Atlantic reported that it’s become “preoccupied” with Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and with the president’s election conspiracy theories in general, at the insistence of the conspiratorial former podcast personality who leads the bureau. From the article: In recent months, Patel has been briefed on the FBI’s “election integrity” investigations in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and beyond.
官员们告诉我，据他们了解，许多与选举相关的调查请求都直接来自白宫，而且常常附带这样的指示：“这对总统来说是大事”或“这是来自47号的要求”。然而，所有这些关注并未带来任何成果。据三位熟悉相关谈话的人士称，在会议中，帕特尔曾对未能取得新发现表示沮丧，并指示工作人员“更深入地调查”或“重新调查”。
Officials told me their understanding is that many of the election-related investigation requests came directly from the White House, many times with the instruction that “this is a big deal for the president” or “this is a push from 47.”But all of that attention hasn’t yielded results. In meetings, Patel has expressed frustration that there have been no new findings, and instructed staff to “look harder” or “look again,” according to three people familiar with the conversations.
当然，特工们未能找到证据来支持特朗普那些错误的想法，这与他们努力的程度毫无关系，而完全是因为一个令人尴尬的事实：这样的证据根本不存在。但问题并不仅限于帕特尔和联邦调查局。
Of course, the agents’ failure to uncover evidence to bolster Trump’s misguided ideas has nothing to do with the intensity of their efforts and everything to do with the inconvenient fact that such evidence doesn’t exist. But the problem isn’t limited to Patel and the FBI.
路透社上周晚些时候报道了库尔特·奥尔森。他最近从司法部的“重大阴谋”调查中离职，此前曾花费数月时间试图找到证据来支持总统的阴谋论，特别是与2020年大选相关的理论，但最终一无所获。
Reuters reported late last week on Kurt Olsen, who recently stepped down from the Justice Department’s “grand conspiracy” investigation, who spent months trying to uncover evidence to support the president’s conspiracy theories, specifically related to the 2020 race, only to produce nothing.
与此同时，在美国司法部（DOJ），长期以来的规定要求检察官必须独立评估所获证据是否足以采取进一步行动。但《MS NOW》最近报道称，联邦检察官已收到警告：如果他们拒绝追查总统希望看到的这类选民欺诈案件，就可能面临被解雇的风险。
Meanwhile, at the DOJ, where long-standing rules require prosecutors to independently assess whether the evidence presented to them justifies further action, MS NOW recently reported that federal prosecutors have been warned that they risk termination if they decline to pursue the kind of voter fraud cases the president wants to see.
美国联社随后报道称：“特朗普政府根除非公民投票的行动，恰恰印证了唐纳德·特朗普总统选举阴谋论的批评者长期以来的主张——这类事件极其罕见、难以证明，且从未被证实会改变选举结果。”这种模式并不隐晦。司法部曾试图推动特朗普的选举阴谋论，国土安全部、联邦调查局（FBI）以及国家情报总监办公室也做了同样的事。
The Associated Press reported soon after, “The Trump administration’s campaign to root out noncitizen voting is demonstrating what critics of President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories have long argued — that it’s incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of elections.”The pattern isn’t exactly subtle. The DOJ has tried to help advance Trump’s election conspiracy theories. So has the Department of Homeland Security. And the FBI.
然而，他们合起来什么成果都没有——尽管一再发出“继续深入调查”和“再次核查”的指令。至于总统本人，他则通过将这些失败伪装成成功来应对。
And the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Collectively, they’ve produced nothing — “look harder” and “look again” directives notwithstanding. For his part, the president has dealt with these failures by pretending they’re successes.
就在今年6月，他还接受了《纽约邮报》记者米兰达·德文的播客采访，在谈到2020年大选时声称：“已经证明选举是被操纵的。”由谁证明的？他并未说明。不过，这番言论其实早已耳熟能详。
As recently as June, he sat down with The New York Post’s Miranda Devine for a podcast interview, in which he said in reference to the 2020 race, “It’s been proven to be rigged.”Proved by whom? He didn’t say. The quote, however, was hardly unfamiliar.
总统在4月于椭圆形办公室举行的一场活动中宣称：“他们正在发现，2020年的选举完全是被操纵的。”“他们”是谁？他们又“发现”了什么？无人知晓。两周前，特朗普也曾对福克斯新闻表示：“听着，选举是被操纵的。你知道这一点，我知道这一点，现在所有人都知道了。真相已经全部曝光了。”
The president declared at an Oval Office event in April, “They’re finding out the 2020 election was totally rigged.”Who are “they”? And what did they “find out”? No one knows. Two weeks earlier, Trump similarly told Fox News, “Look, the election was rigged. You know that; I know that; everybody knows that now. It’s all come out.”
对特朗普而言，他关于选举的妄想不仅真实存在，而且显然已被“他们”以及那些据称因“他们”的“发现”而“曝光”的未知信息所证实。在这一切无稽之谈中，总统从未哪怕稍作努力，用证据来证实自己的主张，尽管他的政府中许多人已经为此付出了巨大努力。
For Trump, it’s simply a foregone conclusion that his election delusions aren’t just real; they’ve been — by “them,” and the unidentified information that’s “come out,” thanks to what “they” have “found out.”Amid all of this nonsense, at literally no point has the president made even the slightest effort to substantiate his claims with evidence despite the extensive efforts of much of his administration. The post Team Trump keeps trying (and failing) to find evidence to bolster election conspiracy theories MS NOW