经济学人下载:约翰逊语言专栏--特朗普弹劾战中情绪化的用词(3)

“Bribery” looked the better bet. The constitution specifically mentions it as an impeachable offence. In federal law, any official who demands or seeks “anything of value” in return for “being influenced in the performance of any official act” takes part in bribery. Mr Trump’s critics maintained that dangling a White House visit before Ukraine’s president, and suspending military aid, were official acts, and that the investigations he wanted in return were “of value”.
“贿赂”似乎是更好的选择。宪法特别提到它是可弹劾的罪行。在联邦法律中，任何要求或寻求“任何有价值的东西”以换取“在任何官方行为中受到影响”的官员都是在行贿。特朗普的批评者坚称，在乌克兰总统之前安排白宫访问，并暂停军事援助，都是官方行为，而他希望得到的调查是“有价值的”。

In the end, Democrats balked, and chose a vaguer charge instead: “abuse of power”, plus “obstruction of Congress”. These, they say, meet the constitution’s standard of “high Crimes and Misdemeanours”. Impeachable deeds need not be statutory crimes of the kind tried in a court, scholars note. Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard, told the House Judiciary Committee that the adjective “high” refers not to the gravity of the offence, but to the status of the president’s office. Yet in rowing back on “bribery” and “extortion” Democrats may have betrayed a nervousness about levels of proof. In preferring “abuse of power”, which has no legal definition, they will seem to some voters to have plumped for a purely political case (if the underlying offence is vague, Republicans of all kinds will be willing to forgive obstruction of Congress). All of which means that, in the clash of rhetorical language and the technical kind, the rhetoric may turn out to be more important. And that is Mr Trump’s home turf.
最后，民主党人退缩了，选择了一个更模糊的指控:“滥用权力”，加上“阻碍国会”。他们说，这些符合宪法关于“重罪和轻罪”的标准。学者们指出，可弹劾的行为不一定是在法庭上审判的那种法定罪行。哈佛大学法学教授诺亚·费尔德曼告诉众议院司法委员会，形容词“高”不是指罪行的严重程度，而是指总统办公室的地位。然而，在“贿赂”和“勒索”问题上，民主党人可能暴露了他们对证据水平的担忧。然而，在“贿赂”和“勒索”问题上，民主党人可能暴露了他们对证据水平的担忧。在一些选民看来，他们更倾向于“滥用权力”，这是一种没有法律定义的行为（如果潜在的冒犯是含糊不清的，那么所有的共和党人都会愿意原谅对国会的阻挠）。所有这些都意味着，在修辞语言和技术语言的冲突中，修辞可能会变得更加重要。这是特朗普的老本行。