The Senate Judiciary Committee GOP has hired a female prosecutor to question Christine Blasey Ford about an alleged attempted sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but they are hiding her identity, even from Democrats.
“She’s someone with experience in this area, a woman,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a senior member and the former chairman of the judiciary panel.
No one will disclose more about the woman who will question witnesses on behalf of the 11 male GOP lawmakers on the panel. But the committee identified her as an “expert sex crimes prosecutor.”
Chairman Grassley doesn’t want another media/political circus like Dems displayed during Judge Kavanaugh’s initial hearing. The best way to do that is to de-politicize the process. The majority has hired an expert sex crimes prosecutor as investigative staff counsel for Thursday.
— Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) September 25, 2018
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. wouldn’t identify her.
“Our goal is to have a respectful hearing,” he said Tuesday. “It’s not uncommon to have professional staff to do the questioning in a situation like this. That’s the way the hearing will be conducted.”
Judiciary GOP lawmakers cited nonspecific safety concerns for the secrecy.
Democrats are frustrated. They want to know who was hired, even though they plan to do their own questioning of the witnesses.
“We don’t know who this prosecutor is, if that is what she is,” said Minority Whip and judiciary panel member Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
McConnell described the hire as “a female assistant to go on staff and ask these questions in a respectful and professional way.”
Republicans are eager to avoid the image at the televised hearing of their all-male panel grilling the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who said Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her at a party while they were in high school.
But McConnell said the outside prosecutor was hired for another reason, pointing to the raucous confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh that was interrupted often by Democrats who then disclosed confidential memos about Kavanaugh’s tenure working for former President George W. Bush.
“We want this hearing to be handled very professionally,” he said. “Not a political sideshow like you saw put on by the Democrats when they were questioning Judge Kavanaugh.”
Democrats, however, are planning to do their own questioning at this hearing as well, Durbin said.
