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Wow that's a bad clip. For those without 8:00 to spare, the summary is:
Harris: Have you discussed Bob Mueller and his investigation with anyone?
Kavanaugh: Yes, with fellow judges.
H: Have you discussed Bob Mueller and his investigation with anyone at [this specific law firm]?
K: I don't remember, but if you have something you want...
H: Are you certain you haven't?
K: Is there a person you're talking about?
H: It's a very direct question. [repeats it]
Committee Member(?): Objection, you can't expect him to know everyone who works at a specific law firm.
Harris: Have you ever discussed Bob Mueller or his investigation with anyone?
K: Of course, he was a coworker.
H: Have you discussed Bob Mueller or his investigation with anyone at [this specific law firm]?
K: I need to know who works there.
H: I don't think you do. You can answer it without a roster of the employees.
K: No, I can't, particularly when you switched from "and" to "or" after the objection.
H: Have you discussed Bob Mueller and his investigation with anyone at [this specific law firm]?
K: I don't remember.
H: So you're denying it? I'll move on, clearly you won't answer the question.
If anything, I'm being charitable to Harris. I cut out a bunch of repetitions, insinuations, and opportunities to clarify. (I also cut out some misconduct from the crowd and quibbling by one of her allies(?) because that's not her fault.)
Not everyone wants to follow some random link to watch a video, but it's hard for a transcript to convey her smug, condescending tone as she asked that ridiculous question over and over, acting as if it was Kavanaugh that was making things difficult by being evasive. Making matters worse is the fact that she never offered a post-questioning follow-up to let people know what the hell she was talking about.
I'm not sure what would lead her to do that.
My guess throughout was that she knew Kavanaugh had spoken to a specific person at that law firm, and was looking for either a denial (which she would confront with evidence to the contrary) or else confirmation (which she would use to question its propriety). She even set up her (presumptive, but not actual) followup with "So you're denying it?" at the end.
If she didn't even do a press release detailing what Kavanaugh should have answered and why the facts are damaging to him, then I don't know what her game was. Maybe Kavanaugh was on to something with "Are you thinking of a specific person?": maybe she wasn't.
EDIT: a better theory is that she was fishing for "I don't know who I spoke to about it", but Kavanaugh never gave that answer. He only said that he spoke to fellow judges, and that he didn't know who worked at the law firm. When asked if there was another way to know if he had spoken to someone at that law firm (fishing for "I spoke with some people I don't know well", maybe) he deflected back to the roster of employees.
Maybe she just thought she would show the country her prosecutor skills by making someone squirm on the stand, but forgot that the someone was one of the top judges in the land.
It'd be understandable for even a top judge to squirm on the stand in such a situation, where the "prosecution" is playing Calvinball as Calvin. That makes it all the more impressive Kavanaugh was able to make the "'and' to 'or'" catch, as @sarker pointed out.
Unfortunately, only dorks like us Mottizens are impressed by stuff like this. For most of everyone else it's a "and the crowd goes mild" type of a reaction.
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Pretty impressive to notice something like this in the stress of hostile questioning.
It was more obvious in the real one than my summary, but yes. I was quite impressed with Kavanaugh's responses.
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This is a guy who kept a journal of his daily activities while in high school. And when I say kept, I mean he still had it when appointed to the Supreme Court. "Detail-oriented" doesn't cover the half of it.
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