home and leaving messages. That was when she decided to continue conversations with Emma Brown, the Washington Post reporter who wrote her story.
While thousands of people had thanked her for coming forward, Ford said, she had also received death threats and had been “called the most vile and hateful names imaginable.”
“It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court,” Ford told the committee. “My responsibility is to tell you the truth.” Then she asked that committee members address her directly and not only through a “professional prosecutor.”
At this point, Ford reiterated a request for caffeine she had made before she began reading her testimony. Bromwich, seated next to her, added, “a Coke or something.” As they walked out of the hearing room during a later break in Ford’s testimony, multiple staffers heard Senator Hirono tell Senator Harris that it was a great idea to have Ford wear a blue suit and ask for a Coke as a throwback to the Thomas-Hill hearings. One of the unsubstantiated claims Hill had made against Thomas involved a Coke can. Senator Hirono had also mentioned Hill repeatedly in her media appearances as soon as the initial Post report was published.
Rachel Mitchell was not brought in because she was a professional prosecutor, but because she was one of the nation’s foremost forensic interviewers of sex crime victims. She designed and taught a course to detectives, child protection workers, and other dedicated forensic interviewers on how to interview victims of trauma, including victims of sexual abuse and child abuse.5 An attorney who had defended cases against her for decades told Arizona journalists that she was “extremely meticulous” and “not a zealot in any way.” In fact, he said, “I’m surprised they’d pick her. She’s not the junkyard-dog type at all.”6
Mitchell did not hear that Republicans were interested in hiring a sex crimes prosecutor until the Friday before the hearing; they interviewed her twice the next day. She proposed making the questioning of Ford as close to a forensic interview as possible. It would be nothing like a cross-examination of a hostile witness. In a forensic interview, the key is to ask open-ended questions that will elicit the most information. Peppering a victim with questions might elicit responses, but at the expense of the larger narrative. She said she would not criticize Ford for waiting decades to tell her story of sexual assault, as most victims delay disclosure. When Ford finally made her allegation and under what circumstances was relevant, but the delay in and of itself was not. The committee was in complete agreement.
Mitchell flew to Washington on Sunday morning and began work on Monday. Because the committee had already obtained information from all the alleged witnesses, she was able to review their statements as well as the sworn interview with Kavanaugh. She reviewed all the information the committee had put together about the alleged assault. She even read through academic articles in which Ford was named as an author. While the media and other opponents of Kavanaugh insisted that law enforcement interview witnesses immediately, a typical investigation begins with an interview of the victim. Because Ford was so vague on details, the committee had also put together a map showing where every witness lived and the Columbia Country Club.
Mitchell did not know when she accepted the assignment of questioning Ford that she would have to conduct the questioning in five-minute increments on behalf of each Republican senator. She learned of that limitation only the day before the hearing. A standard forensic interview consists of open-ended questions. Under the rules imposed by the Judiciary Committee, Mitchell’s questions would have to be more direct. Ford’s public relations team tried unsuccessfully to get C-SPAN to turn its camera on the senator on whose behalf Mitchell was asking questions instead of on Mitchell herself, hoping to give the impression of a line of old men attacking a woman.
Mitchell’s approach was not what anybody in the media was expecting.
She began by offering words of comfort to Ford. “The first thing that struck me from your statement this morning is that you are terrified, and I just wanted to let you know I’m very sorry. That’s not right.” She offered some guidelines to alleviate the stress, encouraging her to ask for clarification and to let her know if she got any details wrong.
The questions could not have been milder. Mitchell asked Ford to make her best estimates regarding dates of the alleged attack,