By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Ronald J. Hansen | The Republic
Rachel Mitchell, a Maricopa County sex crimes prosecutor, will lead questioning in the potentially explosive hearing involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a woman accusing him of sexually assaulting her decades ago.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Mitchell’s boss, praised Mitchell’s experience, calling her a “professional, fair, objective prosecutor” who has a “caring heart” for victims. He said he was contacted by staffers to the judiciary committee over the weekend about Mitchell’s availability and qualifications.
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Montgomery added, “The people of America are well served with her involvement in this process.”
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirmed late Tuesday that Mitchell would question the witnesses scheduled to testify as Republican members’ nomination investigative counsel.
Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed, groping her and trying to remove her clothes at a party in the early 1980s, when she was 15 and he was 17.
