唐纳德·特朗普总统新任极右翼幕僚长斯蒂芬·米勒向白宫工作人员发布的一份新备忘录，表面上旨在消除腐败阴影，这种阴影助推了共和党在上周中期选举中的惨败。但其漏洞之大，足以让一架赠送的卡塔尔客机穿梭其中。
A new memo sent to White House staff by President Donald Trump’s new far-right chief of staff, Stephen Miller, ostensibly looks to lift the shadow of corruption that helped doom Republicans in last week’s midterm elections. But its loopholes are so big that one could drive a gifted Qatari jet through them.
特朗普启用米勒——此人有推崇白人民族主义观点的历史，也是特朗普种族主义大规模驱逐议程的设计师——意在让白宫摆脱失控局面。除了特朗普与伊朗的冲突，腐败问题也是许多选民最关心的议题之一，甚至连MAGA阵营内的知名声音——从网红到前特朗普官员——都开始指责特朗普身边那些据称从事腐败权钱交易的人。一些保守派甚至已开始对特朗普家族的行为敲响警钟。
Trump tapped Miller, who has a history of promoting white nationalist ideas and is the architect of Trump’s racist mass deportation agenda, to pull the White House out of its tailspin. Alongside Trump’s war with Iran, corruption ranked among many voters’ top issues, and even prominent voices in MAGA world — from influencers to former Trump officials — have started pointing fingers at those in Trump’s orbit who they say have engaged in corrupt influence-peddling. Some conservatives have even begun raising red flags about the Trump family’s behavior.
这就是米勒于周四发布该备忘录的背景，备忘录要求白宫工作人员“在白宫办公区内与注册游说人就政府政策举行会议前，须事先获得白宫法律顾问办公室批准”。一些保守派，如亲特朗普网红本尼·约翰逊，将其解读为“预示着将对华盛顿腐败影响力展开大规模打击的信号”。但真的是这样吗？正如《赫芬顿邮报》记者S.V. Date敏锐指出的，这份备忘录似乎无法阻止游说人在白宫场地之外向特朗普官员（甚至总统本人）献媚讨好。
And that’s the context for Miller’s memo, sent Thursday, which ordered White House staff to “receive prior approval from the Office of White House Counsel for meetings on the White House complex with registered lobbyists related to government policy.”Some conservatives, like pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson, have framed this as “a signal that there is a massive crackdown coming against corrupt DC influence.”But is that the case? As HuffPost reporter S.V. Date aptly noted, this memo seemingly does nothing to prevent lobbyists from currying favor with Trump officials (or the president himself) outside of the White House grounds.
此外，据报道特朗普已誓言，在2028年卸任前，赦免所有曾进入椭圆形办公室200英尺范围内的人，这绝非能营造鼓励其工作人员遵纪守法、恪守职业操守的环境。
Plus, Trump has reportedly vowed to pardon anyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval Office before he leaves in 2028, which doesn’t exactly create an environment to encourage his staff to comport themselves lawfully or ethically.
米勒显然被赋予了一项不可能完成的任务：让一个厚颜无耻地不道德的政权及其总统——这位总统曾公开主张他在任期间其家族有权致富——看起来合乎规矩。考虑到米勒本人与同特朗普政府有业务往来的公司存在财务纠葛，我预计他在这方面会遇到一些困难。
Miller has evidently been burdened with the impossible task of making a brazenly unethical regime and its president — who has openly argued for his family’s right to enrich themselves while he’s in office — seem above-board. And given his own financial entanglements with companies that do business with the Trump administration, I anticipate he will have some difficulty on that front.
如果“让美国再次伟大”阵营以为一份措辞强硬的备忘录就能解决其腐败危机，那他们就想得太天真了。
If MAGA world thinks a strongly worded memo is going solve its corruption crisis, it has another thing coming.