The prosecutor who was brought in to ask questions on behalf of the GOP senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee today shouldn’t have become the story, but in some ways she has. Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor, has credentials. Vox lays out her work history saying:

Rachel Mitchell is a career prosecutor and registered Republican from Arizona who, according to Grassley’s statement, has been a prosecutor since 1993. She comes from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix — the same Maricopa County that’s home to former Sheriff Joe Arpaio — and is on leave from her post as deputy county attorney and division chief of the special victims division, which oversees bureaus that handle sex crimes and family violence. Before that, she spent 12 years running the division’s bureau responsible for prosecuting sex crimes such as child molestation, adult sexual assault, and child prostitution.

Her credentials though didn’t seem to come into play during the hearing Thursday. She seemed to be concerned about discrediting Ford. Her questions often seemed leading in nature, but in the end, they led nowhere.

When Senator Kamala Harris said told Christine Blasey Ford “you know you are not on trial.” Someone may have wanted to tell Mitchell that. Mitchell asked nothing about the attack itself. It was clear her job was to someway, somehow discredit Ford. A job she failed to do.

There were a few particularly odd lines of questioning Mitchell pursued. One involved whether Ford has a fear of flying.

Donald Trump Jr. must have seen a different exhange here though because he seized this moment.

Another odd moment was when Mitchell asked Ford where she took her polygraph test. We don’t think Mitchell was expecting this answer.

Many were also questioning why Mitchell pressed Ford on her anxiety.

https://twitter.com/pamelacolloff/status/1045346686686695424

As it turns out though this may not all be totally surprising. Even though she was a sex crime prosecutor Slate points out there are some questionable decisions in Mitchell’s past:

“Mitchell faced some criticism in 2003 for questioning the credibility of a quadriplegic woman who accused her husband of physically abusing her after initially denying the allegations. Mitchell further chose not to prosecute the case. She also weathered backlash in 2011 for making a plea deal with a Jehovah’s Witness elder who spent only six months in jail on charges of sexually abusing a teenage boy.”