美国女议员为特朗普辩护-称调查是政治迫害行为

Can you support fair elections overseas while undermining democracy in your own country?

你能在破坏本国民主的同时支持海外的公平选举吗？

One of Donald Trump's biggest defenders and one of the House January 6 committee's biggest critics is Congresswoman Elise Stefanik from upstate New York.

纽约州北部的国会女议员埃莉斯·斯特凡尼克是唐纳德·特朗普最大的捍卫者之一，也是1月6日众议院委员会最大的批评者之一。

This is not a serious investigation; this is a partisan political witch hunt.

这不是一项严肃的调查；这是一场党派政治迫害。

But her defense of Trump includes spreading false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and that's complicated things for a congressionally funded organization she works with to promote democracy abroad.

但她为特朗普辩护的内容包括散布关于2020年大选的虚假阴谋论，这对她合作的一个国会资助的组织来说是复杂的事情，该组织在海外推广民主。

So tell us more about Stefanik's work promoting democracy abroad.

请告诉我们更多关于斯特凡尼克在国外促进民主工作的内容。

Stefanik spent a lot of her career working with groups that support free and fair elections abroad.

斯特凡尼克在职业生涯中的大部分时间都在与支持国外自由公正选举的团体合作。

Right now she's on the board of directors at the National Endowment for Democracy.

目前，她是美国国家民主基金会的董事会成员。

That group embodies all the values the United States traditionally stands for.

这一团体体现了美国传统上所代表的所有价值观。

Congress appropriates the money, and the endowment writes grants to help activists and civil society groups in countries with autocratic leaders.

国会拨出一笔资金，基金会把这笔资金发放出去，帮助专制领导人所在国家的活动人士和公民社会团体。

After Stefanik was chosen for the board, her politics changed, and now some people who work at the endowment are telling me there's this person undermining their mission and harming their work from the inside.

在斯特凡尼克被选为董事会成员后，她的政治立场发生了变化，现在一些在基金会工作的人告诉我，这个人破坏了他们的使命，从内部损害了他们的工作。

Because of what she's been saying about the January 6 attack on the Capitol?

因为她一直在谈论1月6日国会大厦遇袭事件？

Yeah, that's right. This is a pro-democracy group, and Stefanik questioned the legitimacy of a U.S. presidential election.

是啊，没错。这是一个支持民主的组织，斯特凡尼克质疑美国总统选举的合法性。

She spread a ton of misinformation about 2020. Here she is speaking two days before the U.S. Capitol riot.

她散布了大量关于2020年的虚假信息。这是她在美国国会大厦骚乱事件前两天发表的讲话。

Tens of millions of Americans are rightly concerned that the 2020 election featured uNPRecedented voting irregularities, unconstitutional overreach by unelected state officials and judges ignoring state election laws and a fundamental lack of ballot integrity and ballot security.

数以千万计的美国人有理由担心，2020年的选举中出现了前所未有的投票违规行为，未经选举产生的州官员和法官无视州选举法的违宪越权行为，以及从根本上无法保障选票完整性和选票安全。

And we should say that statement and everything she just said, that's false.

我们应该说，她的声明和她刚刚说的一切都是假的。

Right. Both Republican and Democratic officials never found any evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities.

对。共和党和民主党官员都没有发现任何普遍存在的选举舞弊或违规行为的证据。

But Stefanik amplified this stuff, and on January 6, she voted against certifying Biden's win in Pennsylvania.

但斯特凡尼克放大了这种论调，1月6日，她投票反对证明拜登在宾夕法尼亚州获胜。

At the National Endowment for Democracy, a lot of people on staff were livid.

美国国家民主基金会的许多工作人员都怒气冲冲。

One staffer said the endowment's values were, quote, "totally undermined and mocked" by their own board member.

一名员工表示，该基金会的价值观，被他们自己的董事会成员“完全破坏和嘲弄”。

Some started calling for her to be removed from the organization.

一些员工开始呼吁将她从该组织中除名。

So, in their view, undermining democracy in the U.S. while promoting it abroad.

在他们看来，这是在破坏美国的民主，同时又在国外推广民主。

How has the endowment responded?

该基金会对此有何反应？

They had internal meetings which got really heated, and they put out a statement about January 6 saying the endowment is, quote, "appalled by the violent and seditious assault" on the Capitol, but they decided not to remove Stefanik.

他们的内部会议非常激烈，他们在1月6日发表了一份声明称，该基金会对国会大厦遭受的“暴力和煽动性攻击感到震惊”，但他们决定不罢免斯特凡尼克。

The leadership declined to comment on this story, but I did speak with staff members who were there for those meetings after January 6.

领导层拒绝对这一报道发表评论，但我确实与1月6日之后在那里参加会议的工作人员进行了交谈。

They didn't want to give their names because they weren't authorized to speak to the media and could lose their jobs for doing so.

他们不愿透露自己的名字，因为他们没有被授权接受媒体采访，这样做可能会丢掉工作。

But they were told the endowment is bipartisan, and it cannot get dragged into domestic politics.

但他们被告知，该基金会涉及两党，不能被拖入国内政治。

Their funding has come under threat in the past, most recently during the Trump administration.

他们的资金过去曾受到威胁，最近一次是在特朗普政府期间。

But they've had consistent backing from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and they want to keep it that way.

但他们得到了国会中共和党人和民主党人的一致支持，他们希望保持这种状态。

The staffers were also told that Stefanik supports their work abroad, that she's an ally for them, which raises interesting questions, right?

工作人员还被告知，斯特凡尼克支持他们在国外的工作，她是他们的盟友，这引发了一些有趣的问题，对吧？

How can you be pro-democracy overseas and take pretty brazen, anti-democratic actions here at home?

你怎么能在海外支持民主，而在国内却采取相当肆无忌惮的反民主行动?

And, you know, I reached out to Elise Stefanik. She did not respond.

你知道，我联系了伊莉斯·斯特凡尼克。她没有给予回应。