马特·盖茨人选失败后，特朗普加倍反抗
【中美创新时报2024 年 12 月 2 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）特朗普第一次选择的司法部长人选以惊人的方式失败了。他对国防部长的选择充斥着丑闻。他对情报、卫生和其他职位的选择受到了批评。但如果有人认为当选总统唐纳德·特朗普可能会受到惩罚，他很快就证明了事实并非如此。《纽约时报》记者彼得·贝克对此作了下述报道。
即使已经有这么多被任命的人受到攻击，特朗普在组建下一届政府时仍加倍反抗。特朗普没有选择更有资历、更受尊重、更容易获得参议院批准的人选，而是迅速任命更多意识形态斗士、阴谋论者，甚至连他的家人都出任高级政府职位。
最引人注目的是，他决定罢免联邦调查局局长克里斯托弗·A·雷 (Christopher A. Wray)，后者是他自己在第一任期内任命的职业执法老手，并将美国首屈一指的调查机构移交给卡什·帕特尔 (Kash Patel)，后者自称是对所谓“深层政府”的复仇者。帕特尔被视为一流的煽动者，被其他特朗普顾问广泛视为一股破坏性力量，甚至危险，他们在上届政府的大部分时间里都试图阻止他担任权力职位。
在人们的注意力集中在帕特尔身上的同时，特朗普上周末还任命了两个孩子的岳父担任重要职位。他宣布将提名伊万卡·特朗普丈夫贾里德·库什纳的父亲查尔斯·库什纳担任驻法国大使，后者是特朗普上届任期结束时赦免的重罪犯。他还任命蒂芙尼·特朗普丈夫迈克尔·布洛斯的父亲马萨德·布洛斯担任白宫阿拉伯和中东事务高级顾问。
坚持推进非常规任命，凸显了特朗普决心这次将自己置于可以信任的忠诚者身边，以执行他的议程，包括对他所谓的敌人进行“报复”。特朗普指责拜登总统利用司法部和联邦调查局追捕他，尽管没有证据表明拜登参与了过去几年的案件。
特朗普的有争议的选择也代表着对参议院共和党人的挑战，看看他们在与他们认为不合格的其他提名人对抗方面会走多远，此前他们曾帮助破坏前众议员马特·盖茨被选为司法部长。
“通过坚持提名极具挑衅性的候选人，这些候选人缺乏传统资格，但个人忠诚度高，喜欢对抗，他似乎在故意测试参议院发挥宪法作用的能力和意愿，以制衡总统，”参议院司法委员会共和党前首席提名顾问格雷格·努齐亚塔 (Gregg Nunziata) 表示。
至少一些共和党参议员已经对特朗普选择皮特·赫格塞斯 (Pete Hegseth) 担任国防部长、塔尔西·加巴德 (Tulsi Gabbard) 担任国家情报总监、小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) 担任卫生与公众服务部部长感到不安。但华盛顿确认的历史表明，他们可以将反对的重点放在一个或最多几个来自本党总统的有问题的候选人身上，尤其是惩罚异见人士的总统。
在某些方面，特朗普似乎在采取一种群体策略，向参议院灌输许多在正常情况下可能无法通过审查的有争议的提名，迫使即将上任的共和党多数派选择阻止哪些提名，让哪些提名通过。
例如，在他宣布提名帕特尔之前不久，赫格塞斯的母亲曾在一封愤怒的电子邮件中指责他对女性有“虐待行为”，现在她表示后悔并坚称这不是事实。赫格塞斯还被指控在 2017 年强奸了一名妇女，他对此予以坚决否认。
在这种情况下，共和党参议员可能不太愿意担心派库什纳去巴黎，尽管他有裙带关系，而且在 2004 年承认逃税、报复证人、向联邦选举委员会撒谎。特朗普喜欢抱怨“拜登犯罪家族”，但拜登从未将政府职位交给他的家庭成员，更不用说一个真正被定罪的罪犯了。
房地产开发商库什纳在 2006 年获释前服刑两年，后来被特朗普赦免，他在最近的竞选中为特朗普筹集了资金。如果得到确认，库什纳将成为第一个从阿拉巴马州蒙哥马利联邦监狱营地的铺位搬到巴黎豪华的 60,000 平方英尺大使官邸蓬塔尔巴酒店的美国人。
特朗普最新选择中，最受关注的当然是帕特尔，这位 44 岁的前国会助理加入了特朗普政府，从一个职位跳槽到另一个职位，在卸任后的四年里一直是当选总统的直言不讳的捍卫者。在特朗普的第一任期内，很少有人像帕特尔一样在同事中激起如此强烈的敌意，他被视为一个阴谋家和忠诚的执行者，在政府中四处游走。
特朗普的一些顾问知道确认可能很困难，他们曾预计帕特尔将被任命为联邦调查局副局长，而这个职位不需要参议院批准。在打消这个想法并决定让帕特尔担任局长一职时，特朗普表明了他渴望挑战华盛顿，而不是听从华盛顿的安排。
“卡什完全不适合这个职位。他是字典中对谄媚者的准确定义，”查尔斯·M·库珀曼 (Charles M. Kupperman) 说，他曾担任副国家安全顾问，也是阻止帕特尔成为他所谓的白宫“政委”的人之一。 “任命卡什为联邦调查局局长是特朗普的最终声明，即他的第二任期将以报复为动力。这是对公民的极大侮辱。”
帕特尔指责联邦调查局密谋反对特朗普，并发誓如果他掌权，“我会在第一天关闭联邦调查局胡佛大楼，第二天重新开放，作为深层政府的博物馆。”他呼应了特朗普关于 2020 年选举舞弊的谎言，并发誓“我们将追捕那些在媒体上对美国公民撒谎、帮助乔·拜登操纵总统选举的人——我们将追捕你们。”他还说：“我将在华盛顿特区对我们伟大的总统进行政府黑帮的追捕。”
他还推广了膳食补充剂和声称可以逆转 COVID-19 疫苗负面影响的产品。他曾援引第五修正案，避免在针对特朗普的机密文件案中作证，这可能使他成为第一位在就职前援引拒绝自证其罪权利的联邦调查局局长。
“特朗普选择帕特尔，对司法部、联邦调查局和参议院来说都是一个巨大的侮辱，”曾在比尔·克林顿总统手下担任司法部监察长的迈克尔·R·布罗姆维奇 (Michael R. Bromwich) 说。“帕特尔不尊重联邦调查局，是荒谬阴谋论的俘虏。他不是一个认真的候选人，应该很难被确认。”
这种侮辱正是吸引特朗普及其支持者的地方。当选总统正在推举让华盛顿传统主义者不满意的提名人，这是吸引许多支持者的部分原因，表明他正在履行承诺，撼动一个据称腐败和精英主义的国家首都。
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：2024 年 12 月 2 日，当选总统唐纳德·特朗普提名的国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯在华盛顿国会山。Samuel Corum/Getty
附原英文报道：
Trump doubles down on defiance after the collapse of the Matt Gaetz selection
By Peter Baker New York Times,Updated December 2, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at Capitol Hill on Dec. 2, 2024 in DC.Samuel Corum/Getty
His first selection for attorney general collapsed in spectacular fashion. His choice for defense secretary is awash in scandal. His picks for intelligence, health, and other posts are being panned. But if anyone thought that President-elect Donald Trump might be chastened, he has quickly demonstrated otherwise.
Even with so many appointees already under fire, Trump has doubled down on defiance as he assembles his next administration. Rather than turning to more credentialed and respected choices with easier paths to Senate confirmation, Trump, in rapid-fire fashion, keeps naming more ideological warriors, conspiracy theorists, and now even family members to senior government positions.
Most striking is his decision to push out FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a career law enforcement veteran he himself appointed in his first term, and turn the nation’s premier investigative agency over to Kash Patel, who calls himself an avenger against the supposed “deep state.” Patel, seen as a provocateur of the first order, was widely considered a disruptive force and even dangerous by other Trump advisers who spent much of the last administration trying to keep him out of positions of power.
While attention focused on Patel, Trump over the weekend also named the fathers-in-law of two of his children to important jobs. He announced that he would nominate Charles Kushner, the father of Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, and a felon pardoned by Trump at the end of his last term, to be ambassador to France. And he tapped Massad Boulos, the father of Tiffany Trump’s husband, Michael Boulos, to be his White House senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
The persistence in advancing unconventional appointments underscores how determined Trump is to surround himself this time with loyalists he can trust to carry out his agenda, including “retribution” against his perceived enemies. Trump has accused President Biden of using the Justice Department and FBI to come after him, although there is no evidence that Biden was involved in the cases of the past few years.
Trump’s contentious selections also represent something of a dare to Senate Republicans to see how far they will go in standing against other nominees they view as unqualified after helping to torpedo former Representative Matt Gaetz’s selection as attorney general.
“By insisting on highly provocative nominees, short on traditional qualifications but long on personal loyalty and zest for confrontation, he seems to be deliberately testing the Senate’s capacity and willingness to play its constitutional role as a check on the president,” said Gregg Nunziata, a former chief nominations counsel for Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans.
At least some Republican senators are already uncomfortable with Trump’s selections of Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of health and human services. But the history of Washington confirmations suggests they can focus opposition on one or, at most, a limited number of problematic nominees from a president of their own party, especially a president who punishes dissidents.
In some ways, Trump appears to be following a sort of swarm strategy, flooding the Senate with many contentious nominations that might not pass muster in normal circumstances and forcing the incoming Republican majority to choose which, if any, to block and which to let through.
His announcement of Patel, for instance, came shortly after the revelation that Hegseth’s own mother once accused him of “abusive behavior” toward women in an angry email that she now says she regrets and insists was not true. Hegseth has separately been accused of raping a woman in 2017, which he strongly denies.
In that context, Republican senators may have little appetite to worry, for instance, about sending Kushner to Paris, despite the nepotism and his guilty plea in 2004 to evading taxes, retaliating against a witness, and lying to the Federal Election Commission. Trump loved to complain about the “Biden Crime Family,” but Biden never gave government positions to members of his family, much less one who was actually a convicted criminal.
Kushner, a real estate developer, served two years behind bars before being released in 2006 and was later pardoned by Trump, for whom he raised money during the latest campaign. If confirmed, Kushner would be the first American to go from a bunk at the Federal Prison Camp Montgomery in Alabama to the Hôtel de Pontalba, the lavish 60,000-square-foot ambassadorial residence in Paris.
The lightning rod among Trump’s latest selections is certainly Patel, a 44-year-old former congressional aide who joined the Trump administration, bounced from one job to another and has been a vocal defender of the president-elect in the four years since leaving office. Few people in Trump’s first term stirred as much visceral enmity among his colleagues as Patel, who was seen as a schemer and loyalty enforcer going around others in the administration.
Knowing that confirmation might be tough, some of Trump’s advisers had expected Patel to be made deputy FBI director, a position that does not require Senate approval. In scotching that idea and deciding to put Patel up for the directorship, Trump indicated his eagerness to challenge Washington rather than defer to it.
“Kash is totally unqualified for this position. He is the dictionary definition of a sycophant,” said Charles M. Kupperman, who served as deputy national security adviser and was among those who blocked Patel from becoming what he called a “commissar” in the White House. “Appointing Kash as FBI director is Trump’s ultimate statement that his second term will be driven by retribution. And it is a gross insult to citizens.”
Patel has accused the FBI of conspiring against Trump and vowed that if he were in charge, “I’d shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state.” He echoed Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020 and vowed that “we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you.” At another point, he said, “I am going to go on a government gangster’s manhunt in Washington, D.C., for our great president.”
He has also promoted diet supplements and products purporting to reverse negative effects of the COVID-19 vaccine. At one point he pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying in the classified documents case against Trump, which could make him the first FBI director to have invoked his right against self-incrimination before taking the job.
“Trump’s selection of Patel is a giant thumb in the eye of the Justice Department, the FBI — and the Senate,” said Michael R. Bromwich, who was a Justice Department inspector general under President Bill Clinton. “Patel has no respect for the FBI and is the captive of ridiculous conspiracy theories. He is not a serious candidate and should have a difficult time being confirmed.”
That thumb in the eye is what appeals to Trump and his supporters. The fact that the president-elect is pushing for nominees who upset Washington traditionalists is part of the appeal to many supporters, an indication that he is following through on promises to shake up a supposedly corrupt and elitist nation’s capital.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
