Two things are clear after this morning’s hearing with Dr. Ford: Everyone agrees that Dr. Ford is “extremely credible,” and everyone agrees that Rachel Mitchell’s questioning of Dr. Ford is a disaster. Even Mitchell herself admitted as much at the very end of her meandering and inconsequential cross-examination of Dr. Ford—or at least she admitted that this format, with broken-up five-minute chunks of questions, in public, without an investigation first, is not the best way to get at the truth. And she’s the one Republicans hired to make them look good!
The admission came about when Mitchell started questioning Dr. Ford on whether she knew the best ways to interview sexual assault victims. Dr. Ford admitted that she did not know about best practices for conducting such interviews. Mitchell went on:
Mitchell: “Would you believe me if I told you that there’s no study that says this setting”—she waves her hands indicating the Senate Judiciary chamber—”in five-minute increments, is the best way to do that?”
[Laughter.]
Dr. Ford’s attorney: “We’ll stipulate to that.”
Mitchell: “Thank you, counsel. Did you know that the best way to do it is to have a trained interviewer talk you one-on-one in a private setting, and to let you do the talking? Just let you do a narrative. Did you know that?”
Dr. Ford: “That makes a lot of sense.”
Mitchell: “It does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it?”
It sure does! It’s too bad the people who hired Mitchell to do this interview today didn’t think of that.
As has been widely reported, the Republican senators were too scared to talk to the woman who gave testimony today because they had fears about the optics of that. But were they also too scared to talk to the female attorney they’d hired to do the questioning on their behalf?
It’s a really bizarre exchange. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that Mitchell knows her questioning was a disaster and was trying to blame the format. That or she was telegraphing to Dr. Ford, to the senators, to the entire country, that she was on Dr. Ford’s side, and not on the side of the Republicans who’d hired her.
You can watch that exchange here:
