司法部称，他们向国会谎报了有关亨特·拜登笔记本电脑的调查。两名前联邦调查局特工因就过去对亨特·拜登的调查向国会撒谎而被起诉，他们的律师周三重返法庭，试图说服一名治安法官立即驳回案件，理由是缺乏证据且存在检方不当行为。
The DOJ says they lied to Congress about the probe into Hunter Biden's laptop. Attorneys for two former FBI agents charged with lying to Congress about past probes of Hunter Biden are back in court Wednesday seeking to convince a magistrate judge to immediately dismiss their case, citing a lack of evidence and alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
在周二一场马拉松式的听证会上，治安法官齐亚·法鲁基猛烈抨击联邦检察官的行为，并将他们试图在此案中提交的一份替代起诉书从记录中剔除，原因是该起诉书未获得法官的适当签署。
In a marathon hearing Tuesday, magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui lambasted the conduct of federal prosecutors, striking from the record a superseding complaint they attempted to file in the case because it lacked proper signoff from a judge.
法鲁基表示，政府“不当”行为记录不断增加，正在“往这场火上浇大量汽油”，这支持了前特工尼基·弗洛里斯和布莱恩·贝纳维德斯的律师提出的论点，即针对他们的指控出于政治动机。
Faruqui said the growing record of "inappropriate" actions by the government was "throwing enormous amounts of gasoline onto this fire," which supported arguments from lawyers for former agents Nikki Floris and Brian Benavides that the charges against them were politically motivated.
“所以你们所做的一切只是让我越来越担心，这里面确有其事，”法鲁基对司法部检察官说。
"And so everything you're doing just is making me more and more concerned that there's something to that," Faruqui told DOJ prosecutors.
司法部上周五指控弗洛里斯和布拉德利涉嫌向国会作出虚假陈述，此事源于一项调查，该调查涉及在2020年大选前夕，调查人员是否试图压制或质疑前总统乔·拜登之子笔记本电脑上材料的真实性，这些材料包括令人尴尬的照片和视频。
The Justice Department on Friday charged Floris and Bradley with allegedly making false statements to Congress stemming from a probe into whether investigators in the lead-up to the 2020 election sought to suppress or discredit the veracity of material on the laptop of former President Joe Biden's son that included embarrassing photos and videos.
在弗洛里斯和贝纳维德斯的律师交叉询问下，负责调查其当事人的联邦调查局特工布莱恩·维特披露，整个案件的起因是唐纳德·特朗普总统7月的一次演讲，该演讲的核心是关于美国以往选举中存在欺诈的未经证实的说法。
Under cross-examination by attorneys for Floris and Benavides, FBI agent Bryan Witt, who was tasked with investigating their clients, disclosed that the genesis for the entire case was President Donald Trump's July speech that centered around unverified claims of fraud in past U.S. elections.
维特说，在那次演讲之后，联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔亲自将一份包括弗洛里斯和贝纳维德斯在内的前特工名单的调查工作指派给了联邦调查局堪萨斯城办事处。
Witt said that following the speech, FBI Director Kash Patel personally assigned the investigation of a list of former agents, including Floris and Benavides, to the FBI's Kansas City field office.
维特承认事件的发展顺序不同寻常，并进一步作证说，办公室定期收到联邦调查局领导层关于调查进展的例行询问。
Witt, who conceded that the sequence of events was unusual, further testified that the office received regular check-ins from FBI leadership on the status of their probe.
在周三听证会开始时，一名司法部律师试图对涉及特朗普和帕特尔亲自参与发起调查的一系列提问提出反对。
At the start of Wednesday's hearing, a DOJ attorney sought to object to a line of questioning related to Trump and Patel's personal involvement in initiating the investigation.
法鲁基法官似乎对该反对意见持怀疑态度，称这些证词似乎直接关系到他对指控是否有足够合理依据的最终判断。
Judge Faruqui seemed skeptical of the objection, saying that the testimony appeared to be directly relevant to his eventual determination of whether there is sufficient probable cause for the charges.
“美国总统说去调查某些人，这并不寻常，”法鲁基说。“因此这似乎完全属于对指控依据合理性的调查范围。”
"It's not typical that the president of the United States says go investigate people," Faruqui said. "So that seems to squarely fit within an investigation to the reasonableness of the basis for the charge."