Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin falsely claimed in a Wednesday morning tweet that Rachel Mitchell, the Arizona prosecutor tapped to question Kavanaugh and his accuser Thursday, is affiliated with controversial former sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Only this crowd of clueless old white guys wold pick someone from Sheriff Joe's operation. I was saying no self-respecting lawyer would take the job of giving cover to GOP cowards. I was right.
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) September 26, 2018
Mitchell, who is on leave from her role as the director of the Special Victims Unit at the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, has never worked in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, which was headed by Arpaio from 1993 to 2017. She was asked by Judiciary Committee Republicans to question Ford and Kavanaugh at a public hearing before the panel on Thursday.
“The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns,” the Committee’s chairman, Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), said in a statement announcing that Mitchell had agreed to its request. “I’m very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role.”
When reached for comment, Rubin stood by the tweet but declined to speak on the record.
Mitchell, a Republican and veteran prosecutor, has spent more than two decades supervising attorneys who handle child-sex-abuse cases. Her office holds separate elections from, and is not overseen by, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Arpaio, who was jailed for ignoring a court order to refrain from using racial profiling to enforce immigration law, has said he does not know who Mitchell is.