特朗普称可能干预孟晚舟案，这意味着什么？
华盛顿——特朗普总统在本周的一次采访中表示，如果对达成“史上最大的贸易协议”有帮助，他愿意为一名面临被引渡美国的中国电信高管的案子求情。这是一个明确的信号，表明他的白宫为了得到其认为经济上有好处的东西，干预司法系统不是问题。
A range of experts agreed on Wednesday that the president had the legal authority to order the government to rescind the extradition request for the executive, Meng Wanzhou, or even drop the charges against her. But they could not point to another instance of a president injecting himself into a criminal proceeding in a similar way.
周三，多名专家认为，总统有权下令政府撤销孟晚舟的引渡请求，甚至撤销对她的指控。但他们举不出有哪位总统以类似方式让自己卷入刑事诉讼的例子。
“It sets a very bad precedent,” said Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state and ambassador to NATO who served in Republican and Democratic administrations and now teaches diplomacy and international relations at Harvard. “By mixing justice with trade and the rule of law with trade, it devalues both.”
“这会设下一个非常糟糕的先例，”尼古拉斯·伯恩斯(Nicholas Burns)说，他曾在共和党和民主党的政府中担任过副国务卿和驻北约大使等职，现在哈佛大学讲授外交与国际关系。“把司法与贸易、法治与贸易混在一起，降低了两者的价值。”
Ms. Meng, the chief financial officer of the telecommunications giant Huawei, was arrested last week by Canadian authorities at the request of the American government on suspicion of fraud related to Iranian sanctions. Mr. Trump said in an interview with Reuters that “I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary” for a trade deal.
12月1日，加拿大当局应美国政府的要求逮捕了电信巨头华为的首席财务官孟晚舟，理由是她涉嫌与伊朗制裁有关的欺诈行为。特朗普在接受路透社采访时说，“如果我认为(对达成贸易协议)有必要，我肯定会进行干预。”
The White House did not respond to a request to explain how Mr. Trump arrived at that position.
白宫没有回复记者让其对特朗普如何决定持此立场给予解释的请求。
But John Demers, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division, bristled at the notion that the motivation behind the charges might have anything to do with leverage in trade talks. “We are not a tool of trade when we bring the cases,” Mr. Demers said.
但有人认为，这些指控背后的动机可能与贸易谈判中的砝码有关，负责司法部国家安全部门的助理司法部长约翰·德默斯(John Demers)对此说法感到愤怒。“我们提起诉讼时，不是贸易的工具，”德默斯说。
Mr. Burns and others, however, said the president’s remarks could be seen by other countries as a green light.
不过，伯恩斯等人表示，总统的言论可能会被其他国家视为开绿灯。
“By interfering in a Justice Department decision and giving the impression he may release her in exchange for concessions on trade talks, Trump may inspire authoritarian leaders to do the same to Americans around the world,” Mr. Burns said. “You have seen that China has detained a Canadian International Crisis Group leader. Reciprocity is a fundamental foundation stone of international politics. Others will do unto you what you have done unto them.”
“特朗普干涉司法部的决定，并给人们留下可能会释放孟晚舟以换取在贸易谈判让步的印象，恐怕会激励专制领导人在世界各地对美国人采取同样的做法，”伯恩斯说。“你已经看到中国拘留了国际危机组织的一名加拿大领导人。互惠是国际政治的根本基石。你怎么对别人，别人就怎么对你。”
Unlike most of his predecessors, Mr. Trump has offered strong opinions on numerous pending court cases, in ways that lawyers said could shape everything from jury selection to the ultimate outcome. In the extradition case involving Ms. Meng, the president seemed willing to treat it as just another element in a deal.
特朗普不同于大多数前任总统，他对许多尚未审理的法庭案件都表达过自己的强烈观点，律师们认为，这些意见可能会影响从陪审团选择到最终判决的全部司法过程。就孟晚舟的引渡案而言，特朗普总统似乎愿意将其仅仅视为达成交易的又一个元素。
“It takes the term ‘transactional’ to a new level because he is basically suggesting everything is for sale,” said Wendy Cutler, a trade negotiator in President Barack Obama’s administration. “There’s a reason why these issues are in traditional lanes. And once you signal you are going to trade one off for the other, then you are in a whole new world. This undermines the rule of law.”
“这种做法把‘交易’一词提升到了一个新高度，因为他基本上是在暗示，所有东西都可以出卖，”曾在巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)政府担任贸易谈判代表的温迪·卡特勒(Wendy Cutler)说。“这些问题在传统上各行其道是有原因的。一旦你发出信号，可以做交换的话，你就进入了一个全新的世界。这是对法治的破坏。”
To be sure, the United States has often been willing to mix issues of justice to achieve other ends, such as swapping captured spies with other nations. The Iran nuclear deal offers another example.
无可否认，美国为了实现其他目的，常常愿意把司法问题混在一起，比如与其他国家交换被抓获的间谍。伊朗核协议也是一个例子。
As part of the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran, Iran released five American prisoners and Mr. Obama freed seven Iranian and Iranian-American prisoners. In addition to that swap, the Justice Department also quietly dropped sanctions-related charges and rescinded international arrest warrants against 14 other Iranian fugitives.
作为奥巴马政府与伊朗达成的核协议的一部分，伊朗释放了五名美国囚犯，奥巴马释放了七名伊朗籍和伊朗裔美籍囚犯。除此之外，司法部还悄悄地撤销了与制裁有关的指控，撤销了对另外14名伊朗逃犯的国际逮捕令。
But Lisa Monaco, who was Mr. Obama’s top homeland security and counterterrorism adviser during the Iran deal — and the former head of the Justice Department’s national security division — argued that dropping the cases against the 14 Iranians was very different from what Mr. Trump is floating as a possibility in the Huawei case.
在达成伊朗核协议期间担任奥巴马的国土安全和反恐问题高级顾问，也曾担任司法部国家安全部门负责人的莉萨·莫纳科(Lisa Monaco)认为，撤销针对那14名伊朗人的案子与特朗普就华为一案提出的可能性很不一样。
For one thing, she said, the Justice Department had concluded it was unlikely ever to be in a position to extradite the Iranians, while American prosecutors are now close to having Ms. Meng in their grasp.
她说，一方面，司法部那时已得出结论，引渡那些伊朗人的可能性很小，而美国检方目前离将孟晚舟捉拿归案的距离已经很近了。
For another, the Iran nuclear deal was an international agreement with numerous other nations, not a common bilateral trade dispute. What is more, it was also a one-time move made in a unique context: a deal to end Iran’s nuclear ambitions without war. Trade negotiations, on the other hand, happen all the time — so the precedent, she said, could endanger Americans.
另一方面，伊朗核协议是与许多其他国家一起达成的国际协议，而不是普通的双边贸易争端。更重要的是，那也是在独特背景下采取的一个一次性做法：达成了在不发动战争的情况下终结伊朗核野心的协议。而任何时候都能进行贸易谈判，她说，所以这种先例可能会危及美国人的安全。
“I think as a matter of law Trump could direct the Justice Department to drop the prosecution that is the basis of the extradition request,” Ms. Monaco said. “That would be wrong and outside any acceptable norm, and it would be open season on our own executives to be detained and hassled in other countries that want to get leverage in trade talks. But he could do it.”
“我认为，从法律上看，特朗普可以指示司法部撤销作为引渡请求基础的起诉，”莫纳科说。“但那会是错误的，超出了任何可接受的标准，那会给希望在贸易谈判中获得砝码的其他国家在他们国内拘留和骚扰我们的高管敞开大门。但他可以那样做。”
Curtis Bradley, a Duke University law professor who has written about international law and extradition issues, said what was most unusual about Mr. Trump’s views was that he expressed them publicly as opposed to making them known through diplomatic channels. But he said that from a legal perspective, the decision to request extradition or drop such a request was primarily a matter of foreign affairs, over which the president had broad legal authority.
杜克大学(Duke University)法学教授柯蒂斯·布拉德利(Curtis Bradley)写过关于国际法和引渡问题的文章。布拉德利说，特朗普的观点最不寻常之处在于，他公开表达了这些观点，而不是通过外交渠道传达。但他说，从法律角度来看，要求引渡或放弃这一请求的决定，主要是一个外交问题，总统在这方面有广泛的法律权力。
“Extradition is sufficiently political already and part of our foreign affairs,” he said. “I don’t think it’s comparable to intervening in domestic criminal decision-making.”
“引渡已是足够政治化的问题，是我们外交事务的一部分，”他说。“我认为这与干预涉及国内犯罪的决定没有可比性。”
Still, the move could raise diplomatic tensions with Canada, one of the largest trading partners of the United States.
但是，那样做可能会加剧与加拿大的紧张外交关系，加拿大是美国最大的贸易伙伴之一。
“Our extradition partners should not seek to politicize the extradition process or use it for ends other than the pursuit of justice,” Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, said at a news conference on Wednesday, adding that she had spoken to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the case earlier in the week and had stressed that Canada was a “rule of law country.”
“我们的引渡合作伙伴关系不应用于寻求引渡过程政治化或用来寻求追求正义以外的目的，”加拿大外交部长克里斯蒂娅·弗里兰(Chrystia Freeland)周三在一个新闻发布会上说。她还表示，她已在本周早些时候与美国国务卿迈克·庞皮欧(Mike Pompeo)就此案交流了看法，她强调，加拿大是一个“法治国家”。
She said that it would be up to Ms. Meng’s “lawyers whether they choose to raise comments in the U.S. as part of their defense” and that it would then be up to “Canadian judges how to weigh the significance.”
她说，引渡与否取决于孟晚舟的“律师选择是否向美国提出说法，作为他们辩护的一部分”，也将取决于“加拿大法官如何权衡重要性”。
Mr. Bradley noted that the extradition treaty with Canada made an exception for crimes of “a political character.” Mr. Trump’s comments, he said, might give Ms. Meng’s lawyers a hook to argue that Canada should not send her to the United States.
布拉德利指出，与加拿大签订的引渡条约对“具有政治性质”的罪行做了例外。他说，特朗普的言论也许会吸引孟晚舟的律师提出加拿大不应该把她送往美国的理由。
“If there was evidence that the U.S. prosecution was initiated for political reasons, I suppose Meng’s lawyer could argue that the offense is of a political character,” he said. “And Trump’s remarks might at least be further evidence of that.”
“如果有证据表明美国的起诉是出于政治原因的话，我认为孟晚舟的律师可以争辩说，这个违法行为具有政治性质，”他说。“而特朗普的言论至少可以为这个说法提供进一步的证据。”
