Rachel Mitchell
Rachel Mitchell is the prosecutor who was chosen to question Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a California-based university professor, alleges that back in the 1980s, Kavanaugh, a classmate, pinned her to a bed at a house party, groped her and attempted to remove her clothes.
Today she testifies before congress and will face prosecutor, Rachel Mitchel, despite her demands not to be questioned by lawyers.
Mitchell –who has lectured across the U.S. about sexual assault investigations –was brought in by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley to question Kavanaugh and Ford, on behalf of the 11 male Republicans on the committee.
Rachel Mitchell who is based in Arizona, serves as the chief of the Special Victims Division of the Maricopa County attorney’s office. Prior to that, she spent 12 years running the bureau responsible for prosecuting sex crimes.
She has been described as an “experienced career sex-crimes prosecutor.” NBC notes that Rachel Mitchell is a registered Republican.
She specializes in sex crimes and in the past has said she’s particularly dedicated to child victims of such cases, who are “innocent and vulnerable.”
Mitchell is well remembered for going up against the Rev. Paul LeBrun, a former Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting boys in the 1980s and 1990s. The judge ruled in her favor, and LeBrun was eventually convicted of abusing the boys in his Arizona parishes and sentenced to 111 years in prison.
She has served as a prosecutor since 1993 and is currently deputy county attorney in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix and the division chief of the Special Victims Division, which comprises sex-crimes and family-violence bureaus. She is currently on leave from her positions.
Back in 2012 she told FrontLine Magazine, she was drawn to fighting sex crimes against children after working with a senior attorney who was assigned a case where the offender was a youth choir director.
