As the Kavanaugh hearings dragged into the night, Kamala Harris delivered another one of those withering prosecutorial beatdowns just like the one she dropped on Neil Gorsuch [UPDATE: A tipster points out that Gorsuch wasn’t the unimpressive white dude that she schooled because she wasn’t yet on Judiciary — it was…] Jeff Sessions that catapulted her into the 2020 frontrunner discussion. But this time she kicked it off with a curious interlude.

Right off the bat, Harris dropped an entirely general inquiry: had Kavanaugh ever discussed the Mueller investigation with anyone. Obviously, he had generally discussed it… he lives in the real world, not a bubble as he’d quipped earlier in the day. Was this another line of questions, like those Senator Blumenthal asked earlier, trying to pin Kavanaugh into recusing himself from a future Mueller-related case?

Then… this all happened:

.@senkamalaharris asks if Judge Kavanaugh has discussed Mueller Investigation with anyone at Kasowitz Benson Torres law firm.#Kavanaugh: "I would like to know the person you're thinking of." Sen. Harris: "I think you're thinking of someone and you don't want to tell us." pic.twitter.com/pI2XEHNba9 — CSPAN (@cspan) September 6, 2018

Harris didn’t confront him with a document, so whatever this is, her sources for this conversation are outside of the paltry email dump the committee got. She continues to press him on whether or not he’s spoken with anyone at Kasowitz about the Mueller investigation and he keeps asking her to identify who she’s thinking of. She delivers a remarkably cold: “I think you’re thinking of someone and you don’t want to tell us.”

What in the hell was all that?!? Was Kavanaugh covertly counseling Kasowitz on Trump’s defense? It would seem as though she could have dropped the hammer and gotten more specific. Not for nothing, but my immediate reaction was this may have had nothing to do with Mueller at all. Harris seemed less interested in building a case for recusal than making sure Kavanaugh knew that she knew that he knew someone at Kasowitz and that she could introduce that fact into the record at any given moment between now and the final vote on the floor.

At this point, it’s up to our imaginations what that could mean, but a seasoned prosecutor leaning on someone based on their acquaintances doesn’t generally bode well for the witness. Certainly felt like the prosecutorial equivalent of “nice little nomination you got here — shame if anything happened to it” that defendants hear all the time. Except instead of getting him to flip, she’s giving him a chance to walk away unscathed by whatever she thinks she has.

Could she be bluffing? Looks like we’ll get a chance to find out. This mystery is going to be far, far more exciting than anything else we’re likely to see on Day 3 when a cavalcade of witnesses will praise and condemn him in entirely predictable ways.

Unless someone from Kasowitz makes a surprise apperance on the witness list.

UPDATE: Kasowitz has weighed in:

New: statement from Kasowitz law firm “There have been no discussions regarding Robert Mueller’s investigation between Judge Kavanaugh and anyone at our firm.” — Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) September 6, 2018

That’s very specific. Almost like the original question wasn’t really about the Mueller angle at all…

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.