周二深夜，加利福尼亚州民主党众议员罗伯特·加西亚在X上发布了一条全大写、两个字的帖子：“LAWYER UP。”加西亚预计将担任下一届国会强大的众议院监督与政府改革委员会主席，他向调查的潜在目标发出了一个不那么含蓄的信息：让律师随时待命。
In the late hours Tuesday, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., issued an all-caps, two-word post on X: “LAWYER UP.”Garcia, the expected chair of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for the next Congress, was sending a not-so-subtle message to potential targets of investigations: Keep your attorneys on speed dial.
但加西亚的帖子也可以被视为对众议院本身的一种提醒，因为众议院正在等待当选议长哈基姆·杰弗里斯的带领下，为第120届国会进行组建：我们自己也需要一流的律师。
But Garcia’s post can also be read as a reminder to the House itself as it begins to organize for the 120th Congress under speaker-in-waiting Hakeem Jeffries: We’re going to need a best-of-class lawyer ourselves.
随着众议院考虑开展监督调查，甚至可能的弹劾调查，它将需要自己的熟练法律顾问，以应对与白宫和行政机构之间激烈争夺的斗争。
As the House contemplates oversight investigations and even potential impeachment inquiries, it will need its own, skilled counsel to navigate hotly contested battles with the White House and executive agencies.
这意味着，杰弗里斯对下一任众议院总法律顾问的选择，可能与民主党议员为其领导团队填补人选的投票一样具有重要意义。
That means Jeffries’ selection of the next general counsel of the House could be as consequential as Democratic members’ votes for people to fill out his leadership team.
众议院总法律顾问是一名非党派官员，连同其监督的一支律师和工作人员团队，为众议院的议员、委员会、官员和雇员提供法律意见和协助。
The House general counsel is a nonpartisan official who, along with a team of lawyers and staff they supervise, provides legal advice and assistance to members, committees, officers and employees of the House.
但这一描述掩盖了该人员常常卷入的复杂、有时混乱的政治争斗。宪法权力问题、各种特权的范围以及与行政机构之间的信息请求，都属于众议院总法律顾问的职权范围；众议院本身作为诉讼当事人的任何案件，无论是哪一方，也都在其职责之内。专家表示，随着好斗的唐纳德·特朗普在白宫再待两年，众议院将需要主动且积极地诉讼，以强制执行其传票以及法定和宪法权利。
But that description obscures the complex, sometimes messy political brawls that person often is embroiled in. Questions of constitutional authority, the scope of various privileges and requests for information to and from executive agencies all fall within the House general counsel’s bailiwick; so too does any litigation the House itself is a party to, on either side. And with a combative Donald Trump in the White House for two more years, experts say the House will need to litigate proactively — and aggressively — to enforce its subpoenas and statutory and constitutional rights.
这些斗争将在真正的法庭和舆论法庭上同时进行，以确定谁必须出庭作证并提交文件——以及由谁来决定时间。毫无疑问，这一角色可能具有重要意义。
Those fights will occur in real courthouses and in the court of public opinion alike, to determine who is required to testify and produce documents — and on whose timing. There’s no doubt that the role could be a consequential one.
现在摆在哈基姆·杰弗里斯面前的问题是，在特朗普2.0中期，以及民主党努力应对其立法和调查议程的高期待之际，谁是最适合担任这一职位的人选。
The question facing Hakeem Jeffries now is who the best person to fill it is, midway through Trump 2.0, and as Democrats grapple with how to meet high expectations for both their legislative and investigative agendas.
一名前高级司法部官员出于担心遭到报复，要求匿名，对MS NOW表示，他们认为众议院需要一位经验丰富的上诉诉讼律师，并指出，其中一场或多场争议可能最终会上诉至最高法院。“你必须清楚诉讼的结局在哪里才能出庭，”他们说。但其他人则强调，政治手腕比法律专业知识更重要。
A former senior Justice Department official, who spoke to MS NOW on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisal, said they believe the House needs an accomplished appellate litigator, noting that one or more of these fights could land at the Supreme Court. “You’ve got to go to court knowing where it ends,” they said. But others highlighted the need for political acumen over legal expertise.
当被问及他们认为哪种律师最适合众议院这一职位时，一位熟悉搜寻过程的律师表示，出于保护其与众议院民主党人关系的考虑，要求匿名。该律师指出，众议院是一个立法机构，而非检察官办公室。众议院委员会将开展的调查，“既是事实调查任务，也具有政治性。你需要有人了解沟通和表演方面的问题。”他们还表示，无论杰弗里斯选择谁，他们希望是“一个愿意站出来战斗的人”。
Asked what kind of lawyer they thought would be best suited to the House job, a lawyer familiar with the search, who requested anonymity to protect their relationships with House Democrats, noted that the House is a legislative body, not a prosecutor’s office. The type of investigations House committees will undertake, they said, “are fact-finding missions but also political. And you need someone who understands the communications and theater aspects.”They also said that whoever Jeffries selects, they hope it is “someone who will put their name out there to fight.”
蒂莫西·希菲，一名前弗吉尼亚州美国检察官，曾担任众议院1月6日委员会的首席调查律师，他表示同意，并补充说，有意为民主党控制的国会服务的律师名单已经在编制中。
Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia who served as chief investigative counsel for the House Jan. 6 committee, agreed, adding that lists of lawyers interested in serving a Congress controlled by Democrats are already being assembled.
希菲回忆说，过去，如果国会想要从政府获取信息，双方之间会进行“交易”。但现在这种可能性似乎较低；无论谁进入众议院总法律顾问这一“关键角色”，可能都需要更大的诉讼意愿和能力，而非谈判能力。
In the past, Heaphy recalled, if Congress wanted information from an administration, there would be “horse trading” between the two. But that feels less likely now; whoever steps into the “crucial role” of House general counsel may need a greater appetite — and skill — for litigation, as opposed to negotiation.
希菲补充说，许多被考虑的人选是前司法部检察官。其中一些人在过去两年中被司法部解雇或被迫离职。
Many of those under consideration, Heaphy added, are former Justice Department prosecutors. Some were even fired by or forced out of the DOJ over the past two years.
幸运的是，希菲指出，在民主党控制的国会，律师们正处于一个“完美风暴”的就业机会中，“而且有能力胜任的人也不少。”很可能会被提起的一场斗争几乎肯定会涉及一个复杂的问题：鉴于特朗普政府惯于主张行政特权，什么可以被保密？尽管政府对中期选举似乎信心满满，但它已经为此准备了数月。
Luckily, Heaphy observed, there is a “perfect storm” of jobs for lawyers in a Congress controlled by Democrats, “and the people with the chops to do it.”A fight likely to be taken up will almost certainly involve a complicated question: What can be withheld, given the Trump administration’s penchant for asserting executive privilege? Despite its seeming bullishness about the midterms, the administration has been preparing for this moment for months.
去年8月，司法部法律咨询办公室发表意见称，总统的行政特权延伸至与政府外部顾问的沟通，只要这些沟通涉及总统官方决策、涉及或反映与总统或其直接顾问的沟通，并且是保密的。
In August the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel opined that the president’s executive privilege extended to communications with advisers outside government so long as they relate to official presidential decision-making, involve or reflect communications with the president or his direct advisers, and are confidential.
因此，似乎该司法部的政策是，行政特权可以阻止国会了解例如斯蒂芬·米勒和埃隆·马斯克之间的对话，如果这些对话涉及“总统决策”。特朗普政府对行政特权的理解在关于总统意图改造华盛顿特区高尔夫球场的持续诉讼中已呈现出惊人的范围。在最近一次听证会上，副司法部长斯坦利·伍德沃德拒绝讨论他对特朗普总统一条社交媒体帖子的理解，坚称即使是他对特朗普意思的印象也受行政特权保护。
So, it seems, it is this Justice Department’s policy that executive privilege can prevent Congress from learning about conversations between, for example, Stephen Miller and Elon Musk if they relate to “presidential decision-making.”The Trump administration’s idea of executive privilege has taken breathtaking scope in ongoing litigation over the president’s intent to transform a Washington, D.C., golf course. At a recent hearing, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward refused to discuss his understanding of a social media post by President Trump, insisting that even his impressions of what Trump meant were covered by executive privilege.
这些对行政特权的解释等，可能会成为众议院考虑的那种调查的重大障碍，并可能最终演变成一场“关于行政特权的根本之争”，据一名前司法部高级官员称。而众议院总法律顾问正是要介入的地方。
Those interpretations of executive privilege, among others, could become a major impediment to the kind of investigations the House is considering, and will likely culminate in a “fundamental battle over executive privilege,” according to the former senior Justice Department official. And that’s where the House general counsel comes in.
上一次民主党在特朗普担任总统期间控制众议院，是在南希·佩洛西担任议长期间。她选定的总法律顾问道格拉斯·莱特尔，在司法部服务数十年后退休，期间他出庭陈述了200多次口头辩论。莱特尔还在克林顿政府期间担任白宫副法律顾问，这使他能够预判并应对白宫的一些法律手段。
The last time the Democrats controlled the House while Trump was in the Oval Office was during Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as speaker. Her chosen general counsel, Douglas Letter, came out of retirement after decades of service at the Justice Department, during which he presented over 200 oral arguments. Letter also served as an associate White House counsel during the Clinton administration, enabling him to anticipate and react to some of the White House’s legal maneuvers.
历史表明，他调用了这些经验。他代表众议院及其委员会诉讼的事项中，包括特朗普第一任期内一些最重大的诉讼，涉及不法行为或潜在犯罪行为的证据。莱特尔主导了关于律师约翰·伊斯特曼与特朗普竞选团队工作人员之间的通信是否以及在多大程度上受律师-委托人特权保护的斗争。为了反驳这一主张，莱特尔在杰克·史密斯开展自己的刑事调查之前很久就辩称，众议院1月6日委员会“有充分的诚信依据认定，[特朗普]及其竞选团队成员参与了诈骗美国的刑事共谋”。
History reflects that he called on that experience. Among the matters he litigated on behalf of the House and its committees were some of the most significant fights of the first Trump administration, about evidence of wrongdoing or potentially criminal conduct. Letter led the fight over whether and to what extent communications between lawyer John Eastman and Trump campaign staff were protected by the attorney-client privilege. In order to overcome that assertion, Letter argued — well before Jack Smith undertook his own criminal investigation — that the House Jan. 6 committee had “a good-faith basis for concluding that [Trump] and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
莱特尔还与拜登白宫以及时任前总统特朗普的代表发生冲突，争议点在于前白宫法律顾问唐·麦克甘是否有权拒绝就特朗普据称妨碍穆勒调查的努力向国会作证。最终，麦克甘在众议院司法委员会面前作证。
Letter also clashed with the Biden White House and representatives of then-former President Trump over whether former White House counsel Don McGahn was immune from testifying to Congress over Trump’s alleged efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation. Ultimately, McGahn testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
莱特尔还在一场持续数年的与特朗普的斗争中获胜，这场斗争甚至上诉至最高法院，涉及众议院筹款委员会有权获取特朗普的纳税申报表，联邦法律明确赋予该委员会这一权利。
And Letter prevailed in a yearslong battle with Trump that even reached the Supreme Court over the House Ways and Means Committee’s entitlement to Trump’s tax returns, access that is expressly provided to that committee by federal statute.