Female prosecutor to question Kavanaugh, accuser called fair
PHOENIX — A female sex-crimes prosecutor tapped by Senate Republicans to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about allegations of sexual assault could have a tough time in such a contentious political environment, Arizona attorneys who know her said Wednesday.
Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, was expected to question both Kavanaugh and the first woman to accuse him of sexual misconduct at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh drunkenly assaulted her when they were teenagers has raised a political storm in the #MeToo era and the GOP’s all-male presence on the panel made some want a woman to question Ford.
Mitchell works in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix as the chief of the Special Victims Division. She supervises attorneys who handle cases involving child molestation, sexual assault and computer crimes against children in Arizona’s most populous county.
“She is about evidence-based approaches and isn’t an activist on one side or the other,” said Matt Long, a private Phoenix attorney who once worked for Mitchell and now handles sex abuse cases. “She is rare: a career prosecutor who is bound to issues rather than politics.”
But, he added: “There is nothing in this process to make me comfortable that this process is about fairness, truth and evidence.”
Arizona defense attorney David Michael Cantor, a certified criminal law specialist, said the choice of a longtime sex crimes prosecutor to question Kavanaugh and his accuser was “ironic.”
“If she gives him a pass, if she doesn’t dig down and get the guy to squirm, it could hurt her reputation,” said Cantor, who runs the Phoenix law firm DM Cantor.