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I Was Wrong: Rachel Mitchell Was Great
I was unable to listen live to the Senate hearing, but I have listened to all of Ford’s testimony and I want to correct myself from a comment I made last night: Rachel Mitchell did a great job.
I am glad the Republicans used her to expose Ford.
- She made Ford appear to deny ever having heard of forensic interviews, even though she has a doctorate in psychology and spoke repeatedly about the biochemical processes of how memory works during her testimony.
- She got Ford to admit that rather than have a forensic interview, she had a polygraph test paid for by Democrats.
- She got Ford to admit that the polygraph, which someone else paid for, was taken the day of her grandmother’s funeral.
- She got Ford to admit that she was not paying her attorneys.
- She got Ford to sound confused over her testimony: Was the music too loud for anyone to hear her screams? If so, how did Ford hear her assailants going down the stairs? How did she hear the conversation downstairs?
Ford’s injured little-girl voice was not convincing in a woman of her supposed professional accomplishments. Her credibility is nil.
This will not matter to anyone on the Democrat side, since the truth and they have only a nodding acquaintance, and it will likely have zero play in the media, but Ford looked ridiculous by the end of Mitchell’s bland, mild, relentless quizzing. Well done.
Published in General
Ford is an embarrassment to all serious academics.
Glad you noted the “scared little girl” voice. What the hell was that? I turned it off after listening to that for about 5 minutes. It was absurd.
Nails on a blackboard.
This whole story supposedly came out because she was an unreasonable wife and insisted that her and her husband’s home renovation include two front doors.
Their arguments over this bizarre insistence are what brought them to counseling, where she “remembered” that the reason she needed two front doors was because she was sexually assaulted at age 15.
If so, how can she snorkel or scuba dive? She’s so claustrophobic that she can’t fly, but she’s fine with a scuba mask on? Give me a break.
In hindsight, Mitchell’s line of questioning worked because of what followed, with Kavanaugh and Graham. Taken by itself, the ultra-soft questioning threatened to leave a lot of points unstated at the hearing, but Kavanaugh’s statement and Graham’s howitzer laying out the actions of the Democrats filled in the blanks without any Republican on the committee or Kavanaugh having to go directly after Christine Ford.
Mitchell gave the Democrats and their allies in the media no “War on Women” soundbites to use claiming that Ford was viciously attacked in the questioning, and Kavanaugh and Graham focused on attacking the Senate Democrats, with Graham making the point that it was actions by the Democrats that forced Ford into the spotlight, and then forced her to come to Washington to testify, because as Mitchell had brought out, no one had told her Grassley made the offer to conduct the interview in California.
I actually wrote this post while I was still listening to Kavanaugh’s opening statement, so I obviously thought it worked on its own.
Rachel Mitchell did a great job of pointing out inconsistencies and weaknesses in a deft manner. Her cross-examination was excellent.
I still don’t get the ‘two front doors thing’. Why not two bedroom doors, two bathroom doors, two staircases, two driveways? Can’t recall where I heard it from – spy novel or something, but the spy/author said that when making up a lie, to pepper the story with random but specific observations. Odd that how actually meaningful details were lost to the mists of time and trauma but non-germane facts were offered up with clarity. I would have like to know when she first heard his and the other ‘assailants’ name-did they shake her hand, give both their first and last names before attempting to rape her?
I guess if you advocate for the taxpayer funded ripping apart of unborn babies, false charges & slandering of anyone potentially in the way is no big thing. The Dems, the media and the Left can go to hell.
To me, it worked insofar as giving the Democrats no sound bites to turn into a major issue, and allowing Ford to show her own shakiness on facts. But I think her opening statement was powerful enough to say that, at the very least, she believes something happened. For the four wavering Republicans, that might have been enough to sway at least two of them to vote ‘no’ without Kavanaugh’s statement, and Graham laying out the case after that as to what a ‘no’ vote would mean, based on the lack of evidence Ford presented for him being her attacker.
I haven’t seen any of the hearings, but when I heard Grassley hired this woman, I thought it was a bad idea. I was wrong.
Was the question ever answered about who was paying her lawyers?
They said they were pro bono.
Don’t read too much into the pro bono thing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are Left-wing activists. But I also wouldn’t be surprised that any lawyer, regardless of political party, might take on a case like this pro bono, for the free advertising.
By the way, I’m not critical of this, as a general proposition. It is a win-win-win situation. A person in need of legal services gets them for free; the lawyer gets an opportunity to demonstrate competence; other prospective clients get information about the identity of a capable lawyer they may need.
But her lawyers (Katz) was recommended by DiFi’s office! She said this in the Q&A.
So DiFi coordinated the whole thing.
She got her to admit she flies. Read this morning that the permit for the house remodel was given in 2008 not 2012 . I doubt it took 4 years to put in a second front door.
Do lawyers that do ‘Pro Bono’ work get to take tax deductions for this charitable work?
Oh, but I’ve heard she does . . .
I should have said,
They “said” they were pro bono.
I certainly don’t believe that. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.
CB, I have to disagree. I did not find Dr. Blasey-Ford’s credibility to be nil. Technically speaking, I found her to be an effective and credible witness, in both the substance of her testimony and her demeanor. In the extreme stress of that environment, I did not think that her quavering voice was an attempt at manipulation. To me, she seemed to honestly believe what she was saying. There were small inconsistencies in her prior accounts, which were pointed out, but she was not caught in any significant inconsistency.
This does not mean that she convinced me. I found Judge Kavanaugh’s forceful denial more convincing, especially when coupled with his contemporaneous calendars and the lack of corroboration from the other alleged witnesses to the gathering at issue, particularly her friend Leland Keyser.
The Judge’s calendars were a big deal, and he had a great explanation for their existence, which originally seemed quite weird to me. For those who didn’t watch, he testified that he began keeping a detailed calendar as a sort of diary, following the example set by his father. Though I didn’t see the documents, his testimony clearly referred to individual, daily entries detailing items as trivial as gathering with friends or lifting weights.
I have, rarely, had litigation clients who kept a calendar of this type.
No, you don’t get a tax deduction for donating your time. You can deduct any out-of-pocket expenses that you incur, which is appropriate, though it’s not solely charitable. It’s a combination of charity, advertising, and sometimes professional development. (By “professional development,” I mean taking on a case for free in order to obtain experience in a new area of the law, which is not objectionable as long as it is disclosed to the client.)
I cannot agree.
Her testimony contradicts itself multiple times.
There is no substance that any jurisdiction would act on. None at all. The named witnesses all deny any such event occurred.
No. I fully agree with Comment #18.
Most of your clients probably are not Supreme Court material either.
This man has striven for excellence his whole life.
She did a very good job. She questioned Dr. Ford in a manner that did not appear to bully Dr. Ford. Her last line of questioning established what a real forensic interview is for both Ms. Ford, and Kamela Harris. The very last Rachel Mitchell statement made to Ms. Ford was that the three people she named as being at the party where she was allegedly assaulted had refuted the fact that they were present at the party.
Asking Judge Kavanaugh for a declaratory statement, and then highlighting his 1982 calendar/diary that he kept in high school was effective as well. Asking him about the names on the calendar, and having Judge Kavanaugh recite some of those names reinforced the fact that Dr. Ford’s name did not appear on those calendars was brilliant.
That allowed Senator Graham to unload on the Dems, whether that was the plan or not, Rachel Mitchell did a good job yesterday.
I understand that some may find her line of questioning perhaps too subtle, but you have to remember that she wasn’t interviewing Ms. Ford in an interrogation room.
Ms. Mitchell was in a difficult spot and did, I think, as well as anyone could under the circumstances. Listening to it live, I assumed her work was done when Senator Graham took over.
Lindsey Graham saved the nomination, and gave us Justice Kavanaugh.
Indeed.
Katz ia nothing but a smarmy DNC hack. In the 90s they used her to go out and spread their talking points that Paula Jones had no case.
I don’t care if something happened! It is immaterial, sad though it may be, if she can’t prove it or at least even remember where and when it happened, and this whole circus was orchestrated to be this way by the most corrupt and unethical version of the DNC that has ever existed in my lifetime.
This matter could have been handled privately and investigated the way the Dems claim they wanted had they not purposely and cynically hidden it until the 11th hour, timing its release to do the most political damage rather than to find the truth. And look at them today. They have utterly no shame at all. One of them just said they plan to continue their “FBI investigation” even after he’s confirmed! They plan to hound this man and his family for the rest of their lives. I can’t even find a word to express the depths of the disgust I feel.
We can’t be that organized . . .
I feel the same disgust. How can any decent person support a party whose leaders are so vile?
One thing Lindsey pointed out bears repeating (paraphrasing): if you spent your high school years drugging and raping women, it’s highly unlikely you can stop such behavior once you get to college.
For what it is worth, Alan Dershowitz thought it was a disaster in terms of what a cross-examination is supposed to do. And I think it was David French, another great lawyer, who thought it was meandering. But this was not a court but a political show: the goal was not justice but image creation and meme making. From that point of view, you may be more right than they. The “old white men of the privileged patriarchy” routine has already been worked multiple time by the media.
I can’t say what I think of the questioning since I avoided watching for fear I would destroy my remaining teeth with grinding….
I have heard the lawyer criticized a lot, but I think the problem was with the format, not the lawyer. I thought the entire line of questioning about flying was awesome.
I am very claustrophobic, and I fly all over the world. You know what I can’t do because it freaks me out? Scuba dive.
When she asked about going to Hawaii, that was awesome. (No, I’ve never been to Australia, too far. But have you been to Hawaii?)
Also, @arizonapatriot, I’m not going to pretend that I made this distinction. Someone else on Ricochet wrote about it. I do think there’s something different between the words “credible” and “sympathetic.”
I didn’t find the woman to be either, but I can understand the second.