THE QUESTIONS MITCHELL SHOULD HAVE ASKED BUT DID NOT-ANDREW McCARTHY
And why are they “credible”? Because Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s principal accuser, was widely deemed credible in her testimony at Thursday’s hearing — even though her story has no support from independent evidence, is rejected by the witnesses she named, and is incoherent because she cannot recall and relate rudimentary details.
How did such an account get labeled “credible”? Well, to question Dr. Ford at the hearing, Judiciary Committee Republicans retained Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. In principle, this was not a bad plan, but somebody forgot to tell Ms. Mitchell that this was a high-stakes hearing in need of searching cross-examination, not the rambling, information-gathering questioning typical of a deposition.
“Maybe Republicans instructed Mitchell to refrain from asking Ford hard questions; or maybe, her experience notwithstanding, Mitchell took it on herself to conduct a gentle, confrontation-free examination. Either way, in the one and only chance they will ever have to question Ford, Republicans failed to highlight the deep flaws in her account.
- Mitchell invited Ford to wax scientific about how “the etiology of PTSD is multi-factorial,” and to school Mitchell on the topography of Montgomery County. But if you were listening for basic questions about the alleged sexual assault, you listened in vain. This isn’t hard. A lawyer could have been completely respectful of Dr. Ford’s emotional distress and still have asked elementary questions:
- Isn’t it a fact that you don’t know where or when this purported assault happened?
- Isn’t it a fact that you can’t tell us how you got there?
- You just know the house was several miles from your home, but it is a fact, is it not, that you can’t tell us how you got home?
- You’ve told us that you were terrified running out of the house after the attack, but you can’t tell us who rescued you and drove you away?
- You remember 36 years ago that you had exactly one beer at the party, you remember hearing your alleged attackers go downstairs, you remember exactly the route you took to get out of the house, yet you can’t tell us what happened after you left the house?
So, you’re sure the party happened, but you can’t say when it happened, you can’t say where it happened, you don’t know how you got there, you don’t know how you got home, and every person you’ve identified as a witness says that they have no memory of the party and that they never saw Brett Kavanaugh act the way you’ve described, isn’t that right?”
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