PBS高端访谈:特朗普没有犯竞选资金罪（在线收听）

Judy: And, as we said, there are many questions about the role of the Department of Justice in all of this. John Yang is here to examine that.

JOHN YANG: Judy, not only did the attorney general's name come up several times in that memo. There are new details about what the Justice Department did in all of this. Devlin Barrett covers national security and law enforcement for The Washington Post. Devlin Barrett, let's get right into this. Whistle-blower complaints under the law are from the intelligence community, are supposed to go to Congress. How did this one end up at the Justice Department?

DEVLIN BARRETT, The Washington Post: Well, it's a pretty complicated path, but essentially what happens is, once the complaint is made, folks in the intelligence community question whether this is a valid whistle-blower complaint, because the president, obviously, is not a member of the intelligence community. He's not an employee of one of those agencies. So what happens is, they get legal advice from the Justice Department. And what the Justice Department says is that, no, this is not a valid legal complaint, because it doesn't -- the whistle-blower rules don't really apply to conduct of the president. But, interestingly, and in some ways more importantly, the Justice Department says, but there may be a criminal violation here, so we need to look at that, so we're – we, the Justice Department, are going to take a look at what happened here and see if there's reason to pursue a criminal investigation.

JOHN YANG: Criminal violation of what?

DEVLIN BARRETT: Campaign finance law. The question that was immediately presented by the whistle-blower's complaint is, is the president seeking a thing of value from a foreign entity, which is a violation under campaign finance law? And that question quickly turned into, could you characterize an investigation by a foreign government as a thing of value? And that's the question they were wrestling with.

JOHN YANG: And what was the timing of all this? When did it get to Justice, and when did the folks in Public Integrity clear -- say there was no violation?

DEVLIN BARRETT: So it gets to the Justice Department in late August. And, you know, different parts of the Justice Department get read in and get involved at different times. But, essentially, you're talking about the Public Integrity section with some input from the Criminal Division at the Justice Department and the National Security Division. But, essentially, they look at this question. And, by last week, we're told -- and that's important, because, obviously, a lot was happening on this issue publicly last week -- but, last week, we're told the Justice Department decided there wasn't a criminal case to pursue here.

JOHN YANG: And what do we know about Attorney General Barr's role in all this? The Justice Department said in a statement that the president and the attorney general never discussed the Biden investigation. But what do we know about what role he played in this?

DEVLIN BARRETT: So, we're told by senior Justice Department officials that Barr was aware of the legal question that came in to the Justice Department early on in this process. That is, is this a valid whistle-blower complaint? Can this be treated in the normal course of, you know, whistle-blower complaint handling? So Barr was aware, roughly, that that was going on. However, they also say that Barr wasn't involved, once the question became a criminal question about campaign finance law, that Barr didn't participate in those discussions and he wasn't a part of that.

JOHN YANG: And are there any other questions of legal questions arising from this? Of course, we know impeachment is a political process.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Right.

JOHN YANG: But are there any other legal questions arising from all this?

DEVLIN BARRETT: Well, I think there's going to still be -- obviously, there's a hearing tomorrow, and there will be a lot of, I think, tough back-and-forth about exactly what – individual officials, what opinions did they take on some of these issues? But, as a legal matter, the Justice Department says this is, for them, case closed. I don't know that, frankly, Democrats in the Congress are going to take that as an immediate answer. But the Justice Department views this as not a criminal issue for them to resolve.

JOHN YANG: Devlin Barrett of The Washington Post, thank you very much.

DEVLIN BARRETT: Thanks.

朱迪：正如咱们之前聊过的那样，司法部在这些事情中角色让人颇为疑惑。约翰·杨将为我们进一步介绍这一点。

约翰·杨：朱迪好。司法部长的名字在那份备忘录里出现了多次。而且还有许多细节可以证明司法部在这件事情中牵涉甚多。德夫林·巴雷特是《华盛顿邮报》的记者，负责报道国家安全和执法相关的内容。德夫林·巴雷特，请你带我们深入剖析一下这件事。告发者基于法律的投诉来自于情报社群，该投诉即将由国会审批。这项投诉在司法部的最终审批结果是什么呢？

德夫林·巴雷特，《华盛顿邮报》记者：怎么说呢，还是蛮复杂的，不过最终尘埃落定的主要内容是——投诉提交后，情报社群的人质疑投诉的有效性，因为显然特朗普总统不是情报社群的成员。特朗普不是这些机构的员工。所以，最后是他们获得了司法部的法律建议。司法部说了什么呢？他们说这不是有效的法律投诉，因为并不符合有效法律投诉的要素——告发的规矩不适用于特朗普的操守。不过，有趣的是，从某些方面来看，更为重要的是，司法部说——不过，此事可能涉及违背法律的犯罪行为，所以我们需要调查一下。所以，我们司法部将调查一下此事的情况，看看是否有理由提起刑事调查。

约翰·杨：违反了什么？

德夫林·巴雷特：《竞选财务法》。告发投诉中最先提出的问题是：特朗普总统寻求外国实体的财务帮助，这是违反了《竞选财务法》的吗？这个问题迅速准变为——外国政府的调查帮助是否可以定性为财务帮助。这是他们在纠结的问题。

约翰·杨：这些事发生的时机是什么呢？什么时候由司法部判决，公共廉政部门又是什么时候澄清说不存在违规行为的呢？

德夫林·巴雷特：是8月末由司法部开始审理的。司法部的不同部门是在不同时间介入并了解事态的。不过，本质上来说，公共廉政部门是获得了司法部犯罪部门和国家安全相关部门的信息了的。但不管怎么说，他们也关注了这件事。上周的时候，又有人告诉他们此事事关重大。因为显然上周关于这件事发生了很多事情——不过，上周，我们获得消息说，司法部判决这里不存在形式问题。

约翰·杨：关于司法部长巴尔在这其中的角色，你了解多少呢？司法部在一份声明中表示，特朗普总统和司法部长从未讨论过有关拜登调查的事情。但关于他在这其中扮演了什么角色，我们了解多少呢？

德夫林·巴雷特：我们听一些高级司法部官员说，巴尔在早期就知道了相关的法律问题。就知道这是否构成有效的告发投诉。就知道这次的告发是否可以视为正常情况下的告发投诉审理。所以，巴尔大概知道事态的走向。不过，这些官员还说，巴尔并未参与其中。因为一旦问题成为有关《竞选财务法》的刑事问题，那么巴尔就未曾参与过任何相关的讨论以及事态的发生了。

约翰·杨：是否有与此有关的法律问题呢？当然，我们都知道弹劾属于政治方面的流程。

德夫林·巴雷特：没错。

约翰·杨：但是否有与此有关的其他法律问题呢？

德夫林·巴雷特：我觉得还是会有的——显然，明天有一场听证会，我觉得个别官员关于这些问题的态度会有艰难的反复变化。从法律层面来说，司法部认为，这个案子已经完结了。不过，说实话，我不知道国会的民主党议员是否会接受这个简单的回答。不过，司法部认为这不是刑事问题，轮不到他们解决。

约翰·杨：让我们感谢来自《华盛顿邮报》的记者德夫林·巴雷特。

德夫林·巴雷特：也谢谢大家。