这场动荡凸显了大选引发的一个更广泛困境：在职业官员纷纷寻求离职、高级部门官员接连辞职之际，该部门能否贯彻特朗普总统的优先事项。
The upheaval points to a broader dilemma spurred by the election: whether the department can carry out President Trump’s priorities as career officials eye the exits and senior department officials resign.
周一，司法部一名高级官员向全国各地特朗普任命的联邦检察官传达了一项斗志昂扬的信息，当时他们正在消化共和党在中期选举中惨败的现实：他宣称，我们现在是一个“战时部门”。
A top Justice Department official delivered a gung-ho message to Trump-appointed federal prosecutors around the country on Monday, as they reckoned with the Republican drubbing in the midterm elections: We are now a wartime department, he declared.
据三位知情人士透露，这位官员、首席副副部长阿卡什·辛格在一次电话会议上敦促数十名联邦检察官，加大对民主党控制地区（如休斯顿）那些气焰嚣张的地方官员的施压力度，迫使他们配合联邦移民执法。但筹码所剩无几时，很难孤注一掷。
The official, Aakash Singh, the principal associate deputy attorney general, exhorted dozens of U.S. attorneys during a teleconference call to step up their pressure on emboldened local officials in Democratic-controlled localities, like Houston, to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, according to three people briefed on the exchange. But it is hard to double down when you are running low on chips.
该部门已有数百名职业官员因被迫离职或因不同意特朗普总统的优先事项而离去，如今面临大选引发的一个棘手新用人困境。
The department, which has already seen the exodus of hundreds of career officials who were forced out or left because they disagreed with President Trump’s priorities, faces a daunting new staffing dilemma spurred by the election.
许多坚持到现在的职业官员——其中一些人总体上支持该部门目前的使命——正寻求离职，以避免经历两年残酷的党派斗争。他们之外，还有一批更高调的群体：高级部门官员在过去一周的领导层重组中提交了辞呈，其中一些人是在暗中施压下离职。
Many career officials who hung on until now, including some who broadly support the department’s current mission, are eyeing the exits to avoid two grim years of partisan combat. They are joined by a second, higher-profile group: senior department officials who have submitted resignations, some after a discreet shove, in a leadership reshuffle over the past week.
离职者包括：民事部门负责人布雷特·舒马特；民权部门负责人哈米特·迪隆；迈阿密联邦检察官杰森·雷丁·基诺内斯，他曾监督一项广泛调查，审视针对特朗普先生的各项调查。司法部法律顾问办公室负责人T·埃利奥特·盖泽，以及迪隆的助手赫苏斯·A·奥塞特，已被提名为联邦法官。
Among the departures: Brett Shumate, the head of the department’s civil division; Harmeet Dhillon, the chief of the civil rights unit; and Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney in Miami who oversaw a sprawling inquiry examining the various investigations into Mr. Trump. T. Elliot Gaiser, the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Jesus A. Osete, a Dhillon aide, have been nominated for federal judgeships.
司法部前立法事务办公室主任帕特里克·戴维斯在大选前离职，避免了不得不面对国会可能掀起的行动浪潮。
Patrick Davis, the former head of the department’s legislative affairs office, left before the election — averting the possibility that he would have to confront a torrent of congressional action.
这场动荡并不令人意外。民主党人即将拥有权力，试图限制特朗普直接控制该部门的权力，这将是他两年前胜选以来的首次。加州民主党籍众议员罗伯特·加西亚是众议院监督委员会的民主党首席成员，他嘲讽政府官员“赶紧找律师”，并承诺将对特朗普及其圈子展开广泛调查。
The upheaval is hardly a surprise. Democrats will soon have the power to try to constrain Mr. Trump’s authority to directly control the department for the first time since his victory two years ago. Representative Robert Garcia, the California Democrat who is the top member of the House Oversight Committee, has taunted administration officials to “lawyer up,” promising wide-ranging investigations into Mr. Trump and those in his orbit.
现供职于私人律师事务所的前官员表示，他们接到内部官员的电话，称士气本已低落，自大选日以来变得更糟。但并非所有人都如此悲观。
Former officials now at private law firms said they were receiving calls from officials on the inside reporting that morale, already sagging, had gotten much worse since Election Day. Yet not everyone is quite so glum.
“这些律师离开司法部，无疑会让职业检察官欢呼雀跃，”奥巴马政府时期担任密歇根东区联邦检察官的芭芭拉·麦夸德说。
“The departure of some of these lawyers from D.O.J. will no doubt be met with cheers from career prosecutors,” said Barbara McQuade, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan during the Obama administration.
“现在是密歇根大学法学院教授的麦夸德补充道：“这感觉像是老鼠逃离沉船。”
“This has the feel of rats fleeing the sinking ship,” added Ms. McQuade, now a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
司法部长托德·布兰什已明确表示，他打算利用司法部抵制国会对政府官员（包括新任白宫幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒）进行调查的任何企图。
Attorney General Todd Blanche has made clear that he intends to use the Justice Department to fight off any attempts by Congress to investigate administration officials, including Stephen Miller, the new White House chief of staff.
“我告诉你，”布兰什近日在一次电视采访中说，“斯蒂芬·米勒有律师。就是我。就是我和整个司法部。”在另一次采访中，布兰什采取了不那么对抗的姿态，表示他将遵守法律，配合任何合理的国会调查，但他没有说明将如何做出此类判断。
“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Blanche said in a TV interview in recent days. “Stephen Miller has a lawyer. It’s me. It’s me and the entire Department of Justice.”In another interview, Mr. Blanche adopted a less confrontational posture and said he would obey the law and comply with any reasonable congressional inquiry, although he did not say how he would make such a determination.
司法部发言人基尔斯滕·佩尔斯表示，辛格对美国检察官的讲话并非宣告政治战争，而是重申他决心在毫无根据的地方反对声中推行法治秩序政策。
Kiersten Pels, a department spokeswoman, said Mr. Singh’s comments to the U.S. attorneys were not a declaration of political war but rather a reiteration of his determination to pursue law-and-order policies in the face of unwarranted local opposition.
“提到‘战时’完全是关乎公共安全，”她在一封电子邮件中说。“在若干辖区，新当选的州和地方领导人不再有意与联邦执法部门合作，以维护其社区安全。”据前任官员透露，布兰奇和辛格的挑衅姿态并未得到许多年轻下属的认同，这些下属正在考虑一个近在眼前的未来：米勒将带来更多挑衅，国会将持续进行调查，而他们与特朗普政府的关联可能会阻碍他们未来的就业前景。
“The ‘wartime’ reference had everything to do with public safety,” she said in an email. “In several districts, newly elected state and local leaders are no longer interested in partnering with federal law enforcement to keep their communities safe.”The tone of defiance from Mr. Blanche and Mr. Singh is not shared by many of their younger subordinates, who are considering a near-term future that promises more provocations from Mr. Miller, perpetual congressional investigations and the possibility that their association with the Trump administration will crimp their future hiring prospects, according to former officials.
司法部的整体员工队伍因大规模离职，以及执行特朗普要求和米勒推动增加针对移民刑事起诉的压力而承受巨大压力。
The department’s work force has, as a whole, been stressed by mass departures and the pressure to execute on Mr. Trump’s demands and Mr. Miller’s drive to increase the department’s criminal prosecutions of immigrants.
举一例：华盛顿西区美国检察官办公室代理主任近几周向一名联邦法官承认，他没有足够的人员配备，无法在所有移民依法质疑其羁押的案件中代表政府出庭。
One example: The acting head of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Washington acknowledged to a federal judge in recent weeks that he did not have the staffing capacity to represent the government in all the cases in which immigrants legally challenged their detention.
布兰奇领导下的司法部最引人注目的特征之一，是其领导核心不断萎缩、高度集权且超负荷运转。
Among the most striking features of the Justice Department under Mr. Blanche is its shrinking, centralized and overworked leadership core.
一名今年早些时候离职的前检察官给出了一个辛辣的评价：他开玩笑说，如果那家汉堡连锁店叫“五个家伙”，司法部就该叫“四个家伙”，以反映其极小的领导班子——布兰奇；其首席副手特伦特·麦科特；副司法部长斯坦利·伍德沃德；以及资深检察官辛格，后者负责日益扩大的刑事调查组合。
One former prosecutor who left earlier this year offered a mordant assessment: If the burger chain is called Five Guys, he joked, the Justice Department should be called Four Guys, to reflect its tiny leadership cadre — Mr. Blanche; his top deputy, Trent McCotter; Stanley Woodward Jr., the associate attorney general; and Mr. Singh, a veteran prosecutor responsible for an ever-expanding portfolio of criminal investigations.
现任官员表示，布兰奇的三名副手近几周疲于奔命，以应对涉及调查特朗普眼中的敌人、总统虚荣建设项目引发的诉讼，以及加利福尼亚州和阿拉斯加州最后时刻的选举案件等工作量。
Mr. Blanche’s three deputies have run themselves ragged in recent weeks, current officials said, to cope with the workload involving investigations into Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies, litigation over the president’s vanity construction projects and 11th-hour election cases in California and Alaska.
在许多情况下，他们被迫亲自监督并签署本应由下属处理的复杂法律文件，其中包括一项未获成功的努力：如果民主党候选人在阿拉斯加州以微弱优势获胜，就抢先阻止参议院选举结果的认证。
In many instances, they have been forced to personally oversee and sign complex legal filings that would have typically been handled by their subordinates, including the unsuccessful effort to preemptively block certification of the Senate race in Alaska if the Democratic candidate won by a narrow margin.
迪隆女士的部门名义上对此事有管辖权，但她明显没有参与该诉讼。她随后不久便离开了。
Ms. Dhillon, whose division had nominal jurisdiction in the matter, was notably absent from the lawsuit. She left soon after.
据一位了解情况的人士称，舒梅特先生本人则在过去几个月里拒绝签署一些未具体说明的诉讼，这使他与司法部领导层以及一些白宫官员的关系恶化。
Mr. Shumate, for his part, has declined to sign on to unspecified litigation over the past several months, souring his relationship with the department’s leadership and some White House officials, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
目前尚不清楚，最近的这场人事变动究竟是政治动荡的产物，还是布兰奇先生计划的一部分，旨在清除其领导层中被白宫认为能力不足以完成任务的官员——抑或两者兼而有之。迄今为止，只有迪隆女士的职位由临时任命人员接替。
It remains to be seen whether the recent shake-up was the product of the political tumult or part of a plan by Mr. Blanche to purge his leadership ranks of officials the White House saw as insufficiently capable of getting the job done — or a combination of both. Thus far, only Ms. Dhillon has been replaced by an interim appointment.
了解情况的人士称，雷丁·基尼奥内斯先生曾负责特朗普报复行动的核心项目，即对奥巴马时期官员的所谓“大阴谋”调查；即便共和党人表现更好，他很可能也会被清除。
Mr. Reding Quiñones, who had overseen a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s retribution campaign, the so-called grand conspiracy inquiry of Obama-era officials, probably would have been ejected even if Republicans had fared better, people familiar with the situation said.
然而，他的离职以及其他人的离职，使这位饱受要求的司法部长失去了一个缓冲——这些要求许多几乎无法满足，且来自一个不耐烦的白宫。布兰奇先生还将不得不面对这样一种可能性：这些继任者中的许多人不太可能获得民主党控制的参议院的确认。
Yet his departure, along with those of others, removes a buffer for an attorney general bombarded with demands, many of them nearly impossible to fulfill, from an impatient White House. And Mr. Blanche will have to contend with the likelihood that many of these successors are unlikely to be confirmed by a Democratic-controlled Senate.
布兰奇及其团队将继续面对一个现实问题，正是这个问题让他的前任帕姆·邦迪丢了工作——特朗普坚持要求他对政治对手展开调查，而这些调查往往缺乏证据，法律依据也存疑。
Mr. Blanche and his team will continue to confront the reality that cost his predecessor, Pam Bondi, her job — Mr. Trump’s insistence that he pursue investigations against political adversaries, often despite a lack of evidence and a questionable basis in the law.
尽管特朗普一再呼吁，但他的复仇行动迄今基本未能成功。他最想打击的目标没有一个入狱，尽管他们不得不承受调查带来的经济和名誉损失。
Regardless of Mr. Trump’s calls, his revenge campaign has so far been largely unsuccessful. None of his most prized targets are in prison, although they have had to suffer the financial and reputational costs of investigation.
白宫在这些行动中拿得出手的主要成果，是在法庭上接连遭遇的惨败。其中包括大陪审团越来越愿意驳回他们认为站不住脚的起诉——这种情况曾经极为罕见——以及越来越多来自共和党和民主党总统任命的法官的斥责。
What the White House mostly has to show for these efforts is a remarkable string of losses in court. They include the increasing willingness of grand juries to reject indictments they see as specious, an occurrence that was once very rare, and a growing number of rebukes from judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents.
这些行动还造就了一小批心怀不满的司法部老将，他们被解雇或被迫离开联邦政府，正寻找一个平台讲述自己的经历。突然间，选民给了他们这样一个平台。
Their actions have also created a small army of disgruntled department veterans, fired or driven from federal service, and seeking an arena to tell their own stories. Suddenly, the voters have given them one.
这些人很可能成为监督听证会上的明星证人，向公众揭示他们的亲身经历——并从特朗普及其选定的司法部管理者手中夺走受害叙事的主动权。
These are likely to be the star witnesses in oversight hearings, revealing what they experienced firsthand to the general public — and seizing the narrative of grievance from Mr. Trump and those he chose to run the Justice Department.
尽管官员们表示，辛格所指的仅仅是蓝州地方官员的抗拒态度，但几乎毫无疑问，政府将力图塑造一个仍有能力出击的形象。在重返政府之前，米勒创立了一个法律辩护团体，为该部的复仇议程奠定了基础。
Even as officials said that Mr. Singh was referring narrowly to the recalcitrance of local officials in blue states, there is little doubt that the administration will seek to project the image of an administration still capable of attacking. Before rejoining the administration, Mr. Miller founded a legal defense group that laid the groundwork for the department’s vengeance agenda.
周一，白宫法律顾问威尔·沙夫警告加西亚不要进行国会调查，他提出了一个政治上具有挑衅性但法律上存疑的说法，称这位议员可能因越界而面临刑事调查。
On Monday, Will Scharf, the White House counsel, warned Mr. Garcia against congressional investigations by making the politically provocative but legally questionable claim that the lawmaker could face a criminal investigation for going over the line.
沙夫写道：“我们正在关注民主党议员眼下不断涌现的辱骂性和反复无常的威胁。”
“We are monitoring the abusive and capricious threats that are now proliferating from Democrat legislators,” Mr. Scharf wrote.
迄今为止，政府自身因民主党人的公开言论而对他们发出的频繁威胁并未奏效。去年在特朗普的要求下，对六名议员提起公诉的努力被哥伦比亚特区的一个大陪审团驳回。
The administration’s own frequent threats to Democrats over their public statements have thus far proved unpersuasive. An effort to indict six lawmakers last year, at Mr. Trump’s demand, was tossed out of court by a grand jury in the District of Columbia.
格伦·思拉什为《纽约时报》报道司法部，也曾撰写有关枪支暴力、民权以及美国监狱和看守所状况的报道。
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.