Officially, the special legislative panel meeting Tuesday for a high-drama hearing in Trenton will begin a top-to-bottom look at state employment practices after accusations that Gov. Phil Murphy's staff failed to confront an allegation of sexual assault.

But in reality, Murphy's political career will be on trial.

"I respect their process," Murphy said Monday, referring to the New Jersey Legislative Select Oversight committee hearing. "They've got to make sure they don't get political, they call balls and strikes."

Yet there is no escaping the political danger Murphy now faces from legislators asking questions about what happened to Katie Brennan, an administration housing official who is expected to testify Tuesday. Brennan alleges that, as a campaign supporter in April 2017, she was sexually assaulted at her Jersey City apartment by Al Alvarez, a Murphy campaign official who later landed a top post in the Schools Development Authority.

Brennan says the administration allowed Alvarez to remain on the payroll despite her repeated attempts to alert officials to the allegations.

A frustrated Brennan went as far as to send an email in June 2018 to Murphy and his wife, Tammy, requesting to discuss a "sensitive matter." Murphy quickly replied, "Hang in. We are on it." He handed off the matter to a lawyer who worked on his campaign.

Yet Alvarez did not resign until a Wall Street Journal reporter contacted the administration on Oct. 2 about Brennan's allegations.

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For weeks now, the Watergate-era "what did he know, and when did he know it" questions have shadowed Murphy, and the hearing could potentially yield damning details that could intensify suspicions.

A damning hearing could spell a steady drip of bad news that could engulf his administration in scandal. Murphy officials say the governor was unaware of Brennan's allegations until the Journal first called, a claim that many in Trenton greet with skepticism.

Murphy is now facing the same suspicions that dogged his predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, who claimed he was unaware of his staff's involvement in the George Washington Bridge lane closing until it was first reported in The Record and other outlets in January 2014. Testimony in the trial of two associates in 2016 debunked Christie's claim of being "blindsided."

Even if the case bogs down into a messy, inconclusive "he said, she said" episode, or if his top aides are found guilty of nothing more than bureaucratic self-protection, it's hard to see how Murphy escapes from this unscathed.

As an unabashed progressive, Murphy cast himself as a champion of female empowerment, a governor who quickly restored funding for women's health clinics, backed pay equity laws and boasted of establishing the first Cabinet in state history in which the majority of its members are female. He co-manages his agenda with his wife, who also disclosed that she had been a victim of sexual assault while in college.

Now the Brennan case puts Murphy on the defensive in the #MeToo moment, portraying a governor whose staff allegedly turned a deaf ear to a rape allegation.

“Finally, sexual predators like Al Alvarez are only able to stay in power when those around them do nothing,'' Brennan said through a statement in October. "The failure of members of Governor Murphy’s staff to respond in an aggressive, proactive fashion is unacceptable."

The hearing could also further isolate Murphy in the Statehouse, where he has struggled to marshal support for his progressive agenda despite the "trifecta" of Democratic Party dominance of both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office.

Relations with Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, who weeks ago fulsomely praised Republican Chris Christie as a friend and working partner at Christie's portrait unveiling, have gone from cool to frosty.

Sweeney has nursed a grudge ever since Murphy refused to use his clout to stop the New Jersey Education Association from spending $5 million effort to rout him from office in 2017.

Sweeney, the most powerful elected official from the South Jersey bloc overseen by his political benefactor, George Norcross III, flexed his political muscle in June when he successfully forced Murphy to retreat on budget negotiations.

An empowered Sweeney quickly announced that he planned to pursue a second round of health and benefit reforms, a crusade Murphy opposes. And Sweeney has slowed the march of other high-profile Murphy priorities, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, a Middlesex County Democrat, has also kept his distance from some of Murphy's initiatives, worried that some of Murphy's agenda could make Assembly Democrats vulnerable in their re-election races next year.

The composition of the bipartisan and mostly female committee, to some degree, distills the challenge Murphy is facing. Murphy has few allies in the Legislature and few, if any, among the Democrats on the 15-member panel. The Senate co-chairwoman, Loretta Weinberg, has supported Murphy initiatives, but the Teaneck liberal is a close ally of Sweeney.

During the Legislature's probe into the George Washington Bridge lane closings, Christie could count on several Republicans to vigorously defend him during those hearings. Christie had in his corner former Republican Sen. Kevin O'Toole, who at one point even collaborated with administration officials on a news release that sought to downplay the uproar.

Murphy urged Monday that the panel's inquiry should be a "whole-of-government approach" and not just his administration, adding, "We need to stay survivor-centric."

Murphy was referring to victims of sexual assault. But in political terms, he very well may have been talking about himself.