This morning, scheduled to begin around 10am ET, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to offer their unique testimony over allegations Ford has made against Kavanaugh concerning attempted rape during their high school years. Today’s session will be unusual, however, in that the questions to Kavanaugh and Ford, who will appear separately, will not come from Senators, but rather from a sex crimes prosecutor hailing from Maricopa County in Arizona.
Updates
3:00pm ET – Questioning of Ford has concluded. Kavanaugh will take the seat coming up shortly.
1:10pm ET – Questioning resumes of Dr. Christine Balsey Ford. Brett Kavanaugh will give his testimony when the committee is finished questioning Ford.
12:45pm ET – The hearing is breaking for lunch. Testimony with Blasey Ford will continue around 1:10pm ET
Original Story Below
You can watch the testimony live on the embedded feed below or basically every cable news channel. The broadcast networks, such as CBS, NBC and ABC will also be airing the live testimony. C-SPAN will also provide full coverage without commentary.
Here is a live feed from C-SPAN which begins coverage around 9:45am ET:
As noted above, the person questioning Kavanaugh and Ford is Rachel Mitchell, head of the sex crimes unit at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. Some background on Mitchell from NPR:
The outside attorney who will be directing questions to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, is a prosecutor from Arizona who has dedicated her career to prosecuting sex crimes — and pushed for best practices in investigations to protect and serve victims of assault.
Rachel Mitchell is head of the sex crimes unit at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and has decades of experience prosecuting criminal cases of sexual assault and abuse.
She’ll be asking questions during a hearing on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will center on Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were in high school.
Mitchell is a prosecutor, but in this situation, no criminal case has been opened — and the Senate is not a courtroom. Mitchell has been hired by the Senate Republicans who have staunchly defended Kavanaugh against allegations of wrongdoing.
This is an unusual move, but Republicans controlling the committee wish to avoid giving Democrats a platform to grandstand as well as avoid the bad optics of Ford being questioned by a group of all-male Republican Senators.
Both individuals, Ford and Kavanaugh, have released their prepared opening remarks which you can read at the links below:
• Ford Opening Remarks
• Kavanaugh Opening Remarks
The session kicks off at 10am ET (7am PT), and we’ll have ongoing coverage throughout the day.
