It sounds an awful lot like Sen. Kamala Harris knows something—or thinks she does—about what Brett Kavanaugh has been saying about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the man who nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Harris repeatedly pressed Kavanaugh on the question, as Kavanaugh tried to get her to be specific about what she’d heard and she—an experienced prosecutor, remember—kept putting it back on him.
“Have you ever discussed special counsel Robert Mueller or his investigation with anyone?” Harris opened by asking. “Uhh, with other judges, I know,” Kavanaugh replied. Harris got more specific: “Have you discussed Mueller or his investigation with anyone at Kasowitz, Benson and Torres, the law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s personal lawyer?” Kavanaugh essentially gaped at her.
“Be sure about your answer, sir.”
“Uh, well, I’m not remembering, but if you have something you want to ...”
Harris repeatedly pressed Kavanaugh for a yes or no answer—has he talked about the Mueller investigation with anyone at the firm founded by one of Trump’s personal lawyers—and Kavanaugh flailingly tried to probe Harris for specifics. "Is there a person you're talking about?" Kavanaugh asked.
"I'm asking you a very direct question—yes or no?"
"I need to, I'm not sure I know everyone who works at that law firm," Kavanaugh replied.
“I don’t think you need to, I think you need to know who you talked with. Who’d you talk to?”
After more than two minutes of this, immediately after Harris suggested that "I think you're thinking of someone and you don't want to tell us," Republican Sen. Mike Lee jumped in to try to bail Kavanaugh out, saying “This town is full of law firms, law firms are full of people, law firms have a lot of names, there are a lot of people who work at a law firm.” After interruptions as protesters were dragged out, Lee suggested that Kavanaugh be given a list of names of people at Kasowitz, Benson and Torres. This gave Kavanaugh the chance to collect himself and renew his air of bewildered innocence, but Harris wasn’t letting up. “Did you speak with anyone at that law firm about Bob Mueller’s investigation?”
"I'm not remembering anything like that, but I want to know a roster of people, and I want to know more," Kavanaugh said.
“So you’re not denying that you spoke with [inaudible]?”
If Kavanaugh’s initial answer, that he’d spoken with other judges about the investigation, was accurate, he shouldn’t have had so much trouble denying that he’d spoken with someone from Kasowitz, Benson and Torres—because he should know he hadn’t talked to any non-judges about the issue. And he shouldn’t have talked to any non-judges, let alone anyone from a law firm founded by one of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers. Kamala Harris does not seem like the kind of person who dedicates several minutes to a line of questioning she doesn’t have locked down tight, so this could be very interesting.