BRETT KAVANAUGH/DEMS/GOP/SENATE/SEX ABUSE/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Senate Republicans thought that bringing a female prosecutor to question Christine Blasey Ford would help them avoid looking like they were ganging up on an alleged victim of sexual assault. But once the hearing was underway, they seemed to quickly regret outsourcing their work to former sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. She lasted through the first part of the hearing featuring Ford, but was quickly relegated to the sidelines once Brett Kavanaugh started testifying, never to be heard from again. At the outset of the hearing, Mitchell’s seemingly picayune lines of questioning failed to dent Ford’s credibility and put Republicans on the defensive over the sexual abuse allegations against Kavanaugh. The five-minute rounds of questioning — a request from Ford’s legal team that not every Democrat was comfortable with initially — didn’t help the GOP’s cause, either. Mitchell couldn’t establish any rhythm, clearly frustrating Republicans.”
–John Bresnahan, Rachel Bade and Josh Gerstein, “Rachel Mitchell’s disappearing act confirms GOP blunder,” Politico, September 27, 2018 7:52 pm