美国企业界，赶紧请好律师吧。如果你曾与特朗普政府有业务往来，民主党人明年就会找上你。
Corporate America, lawyer up. If you’ve done business with the Trump Administration, Democrats are coming after you next year.
这并不是大多数民主党人在选举前的说辞，但却是他们下周赢得国会一院或两院多数席位后的作战计划的一部分。资深民主党操盘手史蒂夫·埃尔门多夫最近在与独立记者布罗迪·马林斯的一次交谈中明确表达了这一点。
That isn’t what most Democrats are saying before the election, but it’s part of the battle plan if they take one or both houses of Congress next week. Steve Elmendorf, the longtime Democratic operative, made that clear in a recent chat with independent journalist Brody Mullins.
“我认为，这不会仅仅是‘你给舞厅捐了钱’，”埃尔门多夫说，他是一家华盛顿游说公司的成员。“而会是：‘我给了舞厅2000万美元，然后我去了国防部，从政府那里拿到了一份合同。’”或者：“我给了舞厅1000万美元，然后我去了商务部，霍华德·卢特尼克给了我一项关税豁免。”考虑到当下的党派对立氛围，这听起来很准确，也暴露出企业在政治产业政策时代的脆弱性。
“I think it’s not going to be purely ‘you gave money to the ballroom,’” said Mr. Elmendorf, who is part of a Beltway lobbying shop. “It’s going to be: ‘I gave $20 million to the ballroom, and then I went to DoD, and I got a contract from the government.’”Or: “I gave $10 million to the ballroom, and then I went to the Commerce Department, and Howard Lutnick gave me a tariff exclusion.”That sounds accurate given the partisan times, and it shows the vulnerability of companies in this era of political industrial policy.
许多CEO可能并不乐意为首就职典礼或白宫舞厅开支票。但他们也明白，鉴于政府对其业务拥有如此大的影响力，他们别无选择。
Many CEOs may not have liked writing checks for the inaugural or White House ballroom. But they also figured they had little choice given how much leverage the government has over their business.
如果前苹果CEO蒂姆·库克想为电子产品进口获得特朗普对华关税的豁免，他真的有过选择吗？民主党人说CEO们本应拒绝，但那样他们又不用对股东负责。民主党人现在将把CEO们推上被告席，这既是他们反企业议程的一部分，也是为了让企业为与特朗普政府合作付出代价。
Did former Apple CEO Tim Cook really have a choice if he wanted an exemption from Mr. Trump’s China tariffs for electronics imports? Democrats say CEOs should have refused, but then they don’t answer to shareholders. Democrats will now put the CEOs in the dock both as part of their anti-corporate agenda and to make companies pay a price for cooperating with the Trump Administration.
民主党人还将调查白宫和特朗普家族，但政府官员可以以行政特权为由在法庭上对抗传票。私营企业则不然。埃尔门多夫对马林斯说：“然后国会就会去找企业，因为他们知道企业无法从法院获得说‘不’的保护。”
Democrats will also investigate the White House and Trump family, but government officials can fight subpoenas in court on executive-privilege grounds. Not so private companies. “Congress is then going to go to companies, knowing that companies don’t have the protection from the courts of saying no,” Mr. Elmendorf told Mr. Mullins.
这传递出的信息是，美国企业最好现在就准备好自己的答复和辩护。随着两党将经济的每一个角落都政治化，没有一家公司能免于调查或报复。
The message is that American businesses had better be preparing their answers and defenses now. As both parties politicize every corner of the economy, no company is safe from investigation or retribution.
[视频] 《华尔街日报》观点：周二以色列选举对内塔尼亚胡事关重大
[video] WSJ Opinion: The Stakes for Netanyahu in Tuesday’s Israeli Election