It was a crucial moment in Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. After her emotional opening statement, Ford was, while under questioning, carefully reviewing a document to verify whether an account she had provided of her alleged attack by Brett Kavanaugh was accurate.
And then—in a day full of jarring moments—came a bizarre interruption:
“I don’t know whether this [is] fair for me to interrupt, but I want to keep people within five minutes. Is this a major problem in the middle of a question?”
Committee chairman Chuck Grassley had broken into a conversation between Ford and prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, who was doing the questioning. The decision by Senate Republicans to bring in Mitchell, who has spent her career prosecuting sex crimes, had been met by derision and skepticism from Democrats. But Grassley’s clumsy interjection was one moment (among many) that showed why bringing in Mitchell was the exact right decision: Because if Thursday’s hearing was to be a genuine fact-finding mission, then she was the perfect choice. Her conversations with Ford were coolheaded, clinical, and respectful. She maintained a professional curiosity, and came across with a great deal of empathy and warmth.
Mitchell asked Ford the kind of questions you would expect a detective or investigator to ask a complainant (or, if you prefer, a victim) during the course of an investigation. She asked about the party at which the alleged assault occurred, about the neighborhood where it might have taken place and its relationship to Ford’s own home. She asked about potentially conflicting information between the various reports.
Yes, some of the questions were difficult, and perhaps unpleasant for Ford. Mitchell is not a detective, and this is not a criminal investigation. But this is exactly what sex-crime detectives have to do in the process of getting to the truth. (And toward the end of Ford’s testimony, Mitchell spoke openly with Ford about how the hearing and its series of five-minute increments are not the ideal situation for discussing her allegations.) Complainants are asked to repeat themselves, even when it’s difficult, for the sake of veracity. It’s necessary to establish the credibility of the witness.
And isn’t that what the Democrats said they wanted in the first place, the opportunity for Ford to tell her story so that the public could judge her credibility?
By contrast, the senators themselves—from both parties—couldn’t resist falling into their usual patterns of grandstanding. While calling for a 15-minute break, Grassley went on a rant about how the Democrats should have gone through proper channels when they first received the letter and how doing so would have protected Ford’s identity. (Grassley is certainly correct on this point; but that procedural complaint was entirely irrelevant this morning. We are where we are.) And at one point during Amy Klobuchar’s floor time, a spat broke out about admitting documentation related to Ford’s testimony. Senators like Sheldon Whitehouse and Mazie Hirono used their time to listen to themselves blathering. Meanwhile, Ford and Mitchell looked like real people trying to get at the truth in honest ways. The senators—all of them—simply looked like politicians.
The Republicans might have been merely looking to avoid the optics of having 11 male senators grilling a female witness on a sensitive subject. The Democrats might be genuinely upset that the Republicans abdicated their “responsibility” to question Ford themselves. But in a confirmation process marked by theatrics, drama, and partisan bickering, Mitchell’s presence and her professional conduct was the closest the Senate has come to decency and normalcy in months.
