There is one thing even Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s most severe critics must acknowledge.
The man is not cursed with self-awareness.
He literally does not know when he is indicting himself.
Consider his “defense” in one of his — I, like most observers, have lost count of just how many there are in process — disciplinary investigations.
The Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission has said that the attorney general lied to the court. The misrepresentation, the commission says, occurred when Rokita agreed to a settlement in yet another disciplinary investigation — again, no one seems to know just how many our feckless attorney general has prompted — and then turned around to issue a public statement saying he didn’t mean a word of what he’d agreed to.
That disciplinary action happened because Rokita couldn’t restrain himself from pandering to the MAGA crowd. In the summer of 2022, when he learned that an Indiana doctor had performed a legal abortion for a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been raped and become pregnant from the assault, our attorney general rushed in front of the Fox News cameras to accuse the doctor in false and scurrilous terms.
The stunt backfired on Rokita.
It turned out that Dr. Caitlin Bernard had followed every applicable law. Worse, Rokita violated standards that are supposed to govern attorney conduct by maligning her in ways that seemed designed to damage her reputation.
When Rokita continued to disparage Bernard, she sued him. The result was a kind of draw. The judge did not rule in Bernard’s favor but also determined that Rokita likely had broken the law himself.
The attorney general at first contemplated appealing the judge’s ruling — even though, technically, he won — but then settled on a more expedient approach.
He venue-shopped until he found the Indiana Medical Licensing Board, which was packed with political appointees, including several who had made political contributions to Rokita’s campaigns. They chose not to recuse themselves.
After many hours and the expenditure of goodness knows how many taxpayer dollars, Rokita’s army of attorneys persuaded the pliant board to give Bernard a light reprimand and impose a $3,000 fine on her.
The licensing board’s determination earned derision from legal and medical ethics experts across the country. If the doctor had chosen to appeal the punishment in a court of law where standards of evidence are more rigorous, she likely would have prevailed.
But Bernard apparently decided that the moral blight that is Todd Rokita already had consumed too much of her time and thought—she and her family were being harassed by his supporters—so she dropped the matter.
Rokita, on the other hand, hasn’t been able to let go.
His first disciplinary investigation came from his incendiary comments. He settled because he would have lost and lost big if he continued to fight.
Then he turned around and issued a public statement saying the settlement, in which he acknowledged his actions under oath, was itself a fib. That prompted more investigations and more disciplinary trouble for our undisciplined attorney general.
Rokita cannot avail himself of the defense that normally would make the most sense in this situation — namely, that he didn’t lie. He’s tried to say that by halfheartedly arguing that his affidavit and his public statement are the same thing.
Which they are, in the sense that “up” and “down” are both directions, “black” and “white” are both colors and “truth” and “falsehood” are both words.
Denied that defense, Rokita has gone in another direction. Instead of arguing the merits of his case, he’s doing his best to discredit members of the disciplinary commission by attacking political contributions they have made.
He argues those contributions should disqualify them from rendering any sort of judgment.
You read that right.
The same guy who shopped for a venue and process that was stacked with people who had given him money so he could persecute Caitlin Bernard now says anyone who has made a political contribution to anyone should be disqualified.
No, the man is not cursed with self-awareness.
Nor shame, apparently.
Once again, Todd Rokita has offered two arguments that oppose each other.
If he means what he says regarding the disciplinary commission, he owes Caitlin Bernard an apology and her day in an unbiased court.
And if he doesn’t mean it?
Well, then, he should shut his trap before it gets him in even more trouble.