华盛顿邮报 数百名美国退役军人为外国政府工作(2)（在线收听）

President Trump's fired national security adviser, Michael Flynn, just a short time ago, cutting a deal at a plea agreement hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C. General Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, admitting he misled investigators about his interactions with the former Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.

特朗普总统解雇了国家安全顾问迈克尔·弗林，就在不久前，弗林在华盛顿联邦法院的认罪协议听证会上达成了一项协议。弗林将军承认向联邦调查局撒谎，承认在与前俄罗斯大使谢尔盖·基斯利亚克交往的问题上误导了调查人员。

When that became news back in 2017, 2018, at The Post, we just wondered, "Well, this is something we didn't even realize."

当这在2017年、2018年成为《华盛顿邮报》的新闻时，我们在想，“嗯，这是我们甚至没有意识到的事情。”

It hadn't occurred to most people that retired military personnel had to apply for permission before they could accept gifts or even travel expenses from foreign governments.

大多数人都没有想到，退役军人在接受外国政府的礼物甚至差旅费之前，都必须申请许可。

So we were curious how common this was, and who were people working for it?

我们很好奇这种情况有多普遍，为外国政府工作的人是谁?

Were there other people working for the Russians or the Chinese or what?

还有其他人为俄国人，中国人或其他国家的人工作的吗?

So we put in some public-records requests under the Freedom of Information Act with each of the armed forces -- the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines -- and the State Department.

我们根据《信息自由法》向各武装部队——陆军、海军、空军和海军陆战队——以及国务院提出了公开记录的要求。

And long story short, it took us a long time to squeeze those records out of the government.

长话短说，我们花了很长时间才从政府那里要到了这些记录。

We had to file two lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act in federal court, and we finally compelled the Armed Forces and the State Department to release a whole bunch of records, about 4,000 pages worth.

我们不得不依据《信息自由法》向联邦法院提起两项诉讼，最终我们迫使武装部队和国务院公布了一大堆记录，大约有4000页。

And that's why it took so long to get our arms around it, because the government, frankly, had tried to keep this information from becoming public.

这就是为什么我们花了这么长时间才了解这件事，因为坦白地说，政府曾试图阻止这些信息公开。

Who are the people we're talking about?

我们说的这些人是谁?

Are we talking about a handful of high-profile names?

我们说的是几位知名人士吗?

Are we talking about a couple dozen people? How many?

我们说的是几十个人吗? 有多少人呢?

Well, more than 500 since 2015.

自2015年以来，有超过500人。

And those are ones who got permission, got approval to do this.

这些人得到了许可，得到了许可去做这件事。

There's probably an equal number who didn't bother to get their paperwork stamped, didn't bother to get permission.

可能有同样数量的人没有在他们的文件上盖章，没有获得许可。

This is a law that's not really enforced very strictly.

这是一项执行并不严格的法律。

So, one finding of our investigation was that more than half of the people who seek federal permission to work for foreign governments are going to work for one country, and that's the United Arab Emirates.

我们调查的一个发现是，寻求联邦许可为外国政府工作的人中，超过一半将为一个国家工作，那就是阿拉伯联合酋长国。

That's one of the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms that their whole economy really is based on contracting and outsourcing.

这是波斯湾酋长国之一，他们的整个经济实际上是建立在承包和外包的基础上的。

To have that number of people, more than 280 since 2015, going to work for the Emirati government, they're working as advisers, as contractors, and really doing the same thing they did for the United States.

自2015年以来，有超过280人，为阿联酋政府工作，他们是顾问，是承包商，做的事情和他们为美国做的一样。

They're helicopter mechanics.

他们是直升机机械师。

They're working on Patriot missile batteries.

他们正在研制爱国者导弹电池。

You know, they're teaching people how to fly certain aircraft.

他们教人们如何驾驶特定的飞机。