比尔·克林顿、乔治·W·布什、巴拉克·奥巴马和唐纳德·特朗普有几个共同点。他们都是现代时期的两届总统。他们都在本党控制国会的情况下开启白宫任期。他们都曾在本党失去对众议院和参议院控制权的时期执政。他们都面对过反对党议员，这些议员在一拿到委员会木槌和传票权力，似乎就迫不及待要发起调查。
Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have a few things in common. They’re all two-term presidents from the modern era. They all started their White House terms with a Congress led by their own party. They all served at a time when their party lost control of the House and Senate. And they all confronted opposition lawmakers who appeared desperate to launch investigations just as soon as they took control of committee gavels and subpoena powers.
然而，克林顿、布什和奥巴马以一种直接的方式为这些调查做准备，其前提是假设他们别无选择——因为确实如此。但对于现任共和党总统来说，情况截然不同。
Clinton, Bush and Obama, however, prepared for these investigations in a straightforward way, working from the assumption that didn’t have much of a choice — because they didn’t. With the incumbent Republican, things are quite a bit different.
周六下午，特朗普针对尚未发生的国会监督，在其社交媒体平台上发布了一篇愤怒的长文。文中部分写道：民主党人正四处威胁许多人，包括美国司法部长和其他人，以弹劾和许多其他形式的惩罚相要挟，尽管他们承认没有理由这样做，且受害者并未实施、甚至未曾想过任何可被弹劾的行为。这是最高级别的勒索，他们应为此承担责任。
On Saturday afternoon, Trump responded to congressional oversight that hasn’t actually happened yet with a furious rant published to his social media platform. It read in part: The Democrats are going around threatening a lot of people, including the Attorney General of the United States, and others, with Impeachment and many other forms of punishment, even though they admit they have no reason to do so, and there have been no impeachable acts committed, or even thought of, by the victims of this illegal process. This is extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable for this.
此外，他们威胁我们的捐赠者——世界上一些最受尊敬的人——以监禁和许多其他层级的惩罚相要挟，仅仅因为他们碰巧是共和党人或共和党支持者。这是另一层级的武器化和法律战。
Also, they’re threatening our Donors, some of the most respected people anywhere in the World, with imprisonment, and many other levels of punishment, just because they happen to be Republicans, or Republican supporters. This is Weaponization and Lawfare at another level.
监禁应该针对这些勒索者，共和党人应该迅速清醒过来！民主党政治领袖已向许多无辜者发出了威胁信。凭借本声明副本，我命令司法部立即调查这一犯罪行为！
The imprisonment should be against these EXTORTIONISTS, and Republicans should get smart, fast! Threatening letters have been sent to many people, all innocent, from Democrat Political Leaders. By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!
一小时后，总统发布后续推文，补充道：“民主党对无辜的共和党捐款人和党员发出的威胁绝对是前所未有的，完全是非法的。……这些卑鄙小人因其所作所为应该入狱。”虽然我理解为何往往没必要详细审视特朗普的网络发泄——它们往往只有幼儿涂鸦般的实质意义——但他触及了一个值得更仔细审视的重要问题。
An hour later, the president published a follow-up, adding, “The threats being made by the Democrat Party against innocent Republican Donors and Party Members are absolutely unprecedented, and totally illegal. … These SLEAZEBAGS should go to jail for what they are doing.”While I can appreciate why there’s often little point to scrutinizing Trump’s online tantrums in detail — they tend to have all the substantive significance of a toddler scribbling with crayons — he was touching on an important issue that warrants a closer look.
首先要指出的是，这位共和党人的大多数指控都是歇斯底里的胡言乱语。即将上任的民主党多数派计划推行强有力的监督议程，其中将包括彻底的国会调查、听证会和大量传票，但这一切都很正常。特朗普的表现仿佛他对常规的国会监督极其陌生，以至于根本认不出它来。
Right off the bat, let’s note that most of the Republican’s claims were hysterical nonsense. The incoming Democratic majority is planning a robust oversight agenda, which will include thorough congressional investigations, hearings and a great many subpoenas, but all of this is quite normal. Trump is acting as if he’s so unfamiliar with routine congressional oversight that he literally doesn’t recognize it.
同样值得注意的是，尽管这几乎肯定是无意的，但总统明显的恐慌感显而易见。特朗普本可以说：“民主党想调查什么都可以，但他们不会发现我政府有任何不当行为。我们没有什么可隐瞒的。”但他没有这么说。总统反而辩称国会监督是“非法的”（并非如此），将官方调查与“勒索”混为一谈（两者毫无相似之处），要求对那些敢于审查白宫不当行为可信指控的人展开刑事调查，并向他显然控制的司法部发出新指令。
Just as notably, though this was almost certainly unintended, the president’s apparent panic is palpable. Trump could’ve easily said, “Democrats can investigate anything they want, but they won’t uncover any wrongdoing in my administration. We have nothing to hide.”But he didn’t. The president instead argued that congressional oversight is “illegal” (it’s not), confused official inquiries with “extortion” (they’re not at all similar), demanded criminal investigations into those who’d dare scrutinize credible allegations of White House wrongdoing, and barked new orders at the Justice Department, which Trump obviously controls.
理论上，本应监督司法部的司法部长托德·布兰奇本可以只是礼貌地点头回应总统的古怪要求，但他却在周日早上出现在CNN的《国情咨文》节目中，为国会领导人开展监督调查可能被刑事起诉这一观点增添了可信度。
In theory, Attorney General Todd Blanche, who ostensibly is supposed to oversee the DOJ, could’ve just politely nodded in response to the president’s weird demands, but he instead appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning and lent credence to the idea that congressional leaders who conduct oversight investigations could be criminally prosecuted.
“我们在过去几天甚至过去几周看到的是赤裸裸的威胁，”布兰奇说道，并未指向具体对象。被问及是否认为这些威胁构成犯罪时，这位司法部长补充道：“这取决于说了什么。所以是的，有可能。”
“What we‘ve seen over the past several days and even over the past several weeks are outright threats,” Blanche said, pointing to nothing in particular. Asked if he considered those threats to be a crime, the attorney general added, “It depends on what’s said. So yes, there could be.”
换句话说，在总统将国会监督谴责为“武器化与法律战”一天后，司法部长遵照特朗普的指示，在全国电视观众面前表示，他愿意起诉国会议员——或者至少尝试起诉——因为他们提出了白宫及其盟友不愿回答的问题。
In other words, one day after the president condemned congressional oversight as “weaponization and lawfare,” the attorney general, taking his marching orders from Trump, told a national television audience he’s open to prosecuting members of Congress — or at least trying to — for asking questions the White House and its allies don’t want to answer.