Senator Mazie Hirono attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Christine Blasey Ford to testify about sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 27, 2018. Erin Schaff | Reuters

A Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday blasted her Republican colleagues and the sex crimes prosecutor they hired for treating a woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault like a witness in a criminal trial. Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii chastised the prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, for "asking these questions all to undermine the memory and basically the credibility of" Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh's accuser. And Hirono tried to short-circuit what she suggested was the true goal of Mitchell, who prosecutes sex assaults in Arizona, on behalf of the GOP senators. "I think I know what she's trying to get at," Hirono said. "I'll just ask you very plainly, Dr. Ford, is there a political motivation for your coming forward with your account of the assault by Brett Kavanaugh?" Ford replied: " No." Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., later said to Ford: "You are not on trial. You are not on trial."

Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee | Getty Images

Kavanaugh, who is a federal appeals court judge, has denied attacking Ford, as well as several other women who have come forward in recent weeks to describe alleged sexual misconduct by him dating to the 1980s. Mitchell's questioning of Ford drew widespread criticism from political observers on social media over her focusing less on Ford's claim of being attacked by Kavanaugh at a private home in the early 1980s, and more on details of what happened afterward. Mitchell, from the start of her questioning, seemed hobbled by the fact that she had blocks of just five minutes of question time and was required to alternate her turns with Democratic senators, who did their own questioning. The career prosecutor spent many minutes laying the foundation for asking questions that seemed designed to chip away at the veracity of Ford's memory, or call into question her motivation. But she seemed unable to deliver a knockout blow to Ford, which even one GOP senator seemed to acknowledge. "I found no reason to not find her credible," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, after Ford finished her testimony.

Rachel Mitchell, chief of the Special Victims Division of the Maricopa County attorney's office in Arizona, listens to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Erin Schaff | Getty Images