Cynical Decision to Hire 'Female Assistant' Rapidly Backfired on Republicans
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, nervous about the optics of an all-male panel interrogating an alleged victim of sexual assault, gambled and hired a “female assistant” to question Christine Blasey Ford Thursday on their behalf. All 11 members of the Republican majority — including Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who called for the hearing — yielded their time to Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell.
In the first several hours of testimony, Mitchell cross-examined Ford about her memories of the night of the alleged assault at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when both were teenagers. Mitchell also pressed Ford about her fear of flying, about the polygraph test she submitted to before coming forward, about how she selected her lawyers and about how she planned to pay her legal fees.
The prosecutor also asked about the mutual friend of Ford and Kavanaugh’s — the same individual who GOP operative Ed Whelan accused, without credible evidence, of sexually assaulting Ford. (Ford said at that time and again on Thursday she was “100 percent certain” that Kavanaugh was her attacker.)
Mitchell’s questions, which she chose with the help of the Republican committee members and their aides, seemed designed to raise questions about whether Ford’s decision to come forward was politically motivated. But the emerging consensus, vocalized by a number of high-profile Republicans — including, at least reportedly, the president — was that the “female assistant” gambit had failed.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman reported aides and confidants to the president were doubting the wisdom of enlisting Mitchell. “Almost every person close to Trump who had told me having a sex crimes prosecutor question Ford was good strategy is saying they think it was a mistake after the first portion of the hearing,” Haberman tweeted.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rachel-mitchell-christine-blasey-ford-729488/
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