By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--September 26, 2018
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I hasten to clarify: Rachel Mitchell is not the elected Maricopa County Prosecutor, as that’s an elected position held by one specific person. That’s Bill Montgomery. But Mitchell works in the prosecutor’s office and has a long history prosecuting sex crimes.
She is Mitch McConnell’s choice to handle the questioning, which is not welcome news to Christine Blasey Ford, who apparently wanted the “optics” of being subjected to the star chamber by a bunch of old white men.
“The majority members have followed the bipartisan recommendation to hire as staff counsel for the committee an experienced career sex-crimes prosecutor to question the witnesses at Thursday’s hearing,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement released Tuesday night. “The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns. I’m very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role. “Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity,” Grassley continued. ‘I’ve worked to give Dr. Ford an opportunity to share serious allegations with committee members in any format she’d like after learning of the allegations.”Mitchell is on leave as deputy county attorney in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, and is the division chief of the Special Victims Unit, which deals with sex crimes and family violence. She has worked as a prosecutor since 1993.
While Republicans plan to let Mitchell do the questioning, they may follow up on answers. Most Democrats have said they plan to do their own questioning during Thursday’s hearing. “I promised Dr. Ford that I would do everything in my power to avoid a repeat of the ‘circus’ atmosphere in the hearing room that we saw the week of September 4,” Grassley said. “I’ve taken this additional step to have questions asked by expert staff counsel to establish the most fair and respectful treatment of the witnesses possible.”By the way, McConnell had intended to keep Mitchell’s name under wraps to ensure her safety, but the Washington Post went ahead and reported her name. The Washington Post wants people killed. I suppose this will be a different role for Mitchell in the sense that her toughest questioning would normally be for suspects, although I suppose that when you interview a self-proclaimed victim you also have to be pretty exacting in your questioning to ensure the accusation isn’t false. Obviously Mitchell has to be precise and thorough without seeming to be hostile or unfair to Ford. Granted, the left-wing true believers are going to see anything other than “we believe you totally, Christine” as unfair to her. Mitchell can’t worry about them. She has to do her job and get the truth as best she can without coming across as being after anything other than that. By the way, some on the left are trying to make hay out of the fact that Mitchell “worked with Sheriff Joe.” Well yeah, he was the sheriff, she was a prosecuting attorney. That’s the way it works. Then again, in this circus, nothing works the way it works.
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