Congress

House Democrats think Pam Bondi just helped them in the midterms

Published

4 months ago

February 12, 2026

Democrats walked into the House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi Wednesday expecting her to be nonresponsive and combative. They walked out with what they believe to be a more compelling argument for winning back the majority.

For four hours, the nation’s top law enforcement officer largely refused to answer questions from Democrats about the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

In some moments, Bondi deflected queries by asking members if they cared about crimes or violence in their districts, flipping through a massive binder of research Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) derided as her “burn book.”

In others, she responded by lashing out at committee members in personal terms, at one point calling Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the panel’s top Democrat, a “washed-up, loser lawyer — not even a lawyer.”

“If we had the power, we would subpoena her, and we would require her to answer our questions,” Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, told reporters following the hearing. “So that is the importance of who’s going to be in control in Congress after the 2026 elections because we would like the subpoena power, so we don’t see this kind of phenomenal disrespect of Congress.”

Even if Democrats reclaim the gavel of the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi could still drag her feet. And her aggressive posture in attacking lawmakers during a regular oversight hearing of the DOJ — the purported purpose of Wednesday’s proceedings — suggests she will not cooperate easily.

“The questions I’ve asked … are not trick questions, they’re not gotcha questions, they’re actually basic questions about how the Department of Justice functions,” said Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), who said the hearing lacked “some modicum of resembling something that has typically been fairly conventional: an oversight hearing of the Department of Justice.”

The only relevant, new information that Bondi provided to lawmakers was in response to a question from a Republican, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who asked whether people would be indicted for ties to Epstein’s crimes.

Bondi said vaguely, “We have pending investigations in our office.” It was not clear whether she was referring to investigations into prominent Democratic officials, which had come after a directive from President Donald Trump.

Still, Democrats think Bondi’s hostile performance throughout the hearing will help their cause in the midterms as they make a case for a return to normalcy. At times, even House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan had to interrupt to ensure lawmakers could ask their questions.

“I can’t believe that the Attorney General of the United States of America would appear before hundreds of millions of Americans this way and then have a book of insults that she’s ready to lob at members of Congress … we’ve got to get back to the America that we had before they dragged us down into the mud like this,” Raskin said following the hearing.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a member of the Judiciary panel, also said the events Wednesday boost Democrats’ case in the midterm elections.

“She did an excellent job in appealing to Donald Trump, and it was [for] … one person audience: Donald Trump,” said Cohen, adding that the hearing “gave the public some information about what the Justice Department’s not doing correctly.”

In many ways, Bondi played directly into Democrats’ hands, and not only by trash-talking lawmakers whose questions she didn’t want to answer — similar to the maneuver she deployed when testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee back in October.

Democrats coordinated with the victims of Epstein’s abuse so that roughly ten could sit in the hearing room behind Bondi. Lawmakers offered her the opportunity to engage with them directly and apologize for the department’s conduct or meet with the victims.

Bondi, in her opening remarks, said she was “deeply sorry for what any victim … has been through” but otherwise refused to take the bait. At one point, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked Bondi to apologize to the victims for what the Justice Department has put them through, Bondi declined: “I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.”

Democrats also headed into Wednesday’s high-profile hearing prepared to draw a contrast between their interest in asking hard questions about events that have captured the public’s attention — namely justice for Epstein’s victims and accountability for any potential accomplices — and Republicans’ more politically accommodating approach.

Jordan said on Wednesday evening he thought Bondi “handled herself very well” and expected Democrats to be aggressive. At one point, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) yelled at Bondi to be “quiet” as he fought to be heard, while Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) called her “one of the worst” attorneys generals “in our history.”

“I think it went great — I mean, the bottom line is … under the leadership of the Attorney General and the president, crime is down,” Jordan said.

The only Republican who challenged Bondi was Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the charge to release the Epstein files in DOJ’s possession and picked enough fights with Trump that the president and his allies are now seeking to oust him in a primary.

Accusing Bondi of failing to comply with the law he shepherded through Congress with sloppy redactions — or lack thereof — of both victims and the name of one powerful man in the Epstein files, Bondi called Massie a “failed politician” and a “hypocrite.”

Massie, in an interview Wednesday evening, said it took Bondi “a long time to find my insult card.”

“I think she was crashing the whole time,” he said. “There was no effort really to answer any of the difficult questions.”

Asked about being the only Republican to ask a tough question at the hearing, Massie replied, “Nobody wants to get on the bad side of Trump … That’ll change once we get past our primaries.”

Congress

GOP leaders cancel Friday votes as House agenda hangs in balance

Published

3 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republican leaders have canceled planned Friday votes as GOP hard-liners continue threatening to block legislative action over an elections bill that is stalled in the Senate, according to a notice sent to members Thursday.

Members are expected to leave town after a 1 p.m. vote Thursday, and it’s possible they might not return Monday as planned: Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping to discuss the legislative agenda with President Donald Trump at an afternoon meeting in hopes of brokering a solution that will allow the House to resume voting next week.

If not, the House could join the Senate on an extended recess, not returning till mid-July, two people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations said.

Congress

Raskin launches discharge effort to formally block ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’

Published

4 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is launching a campaign to force a floor vote on legislation that would formally block the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

The so-called No Carte Blanche Act — a tongue-in-cheek nod to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — also would also explicitly bar payouts from the Judgement Fund, a pre-existing account for settlements with the United States, to people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

While Blanche, who will sit for a confirmation hearing July 15 to run the Justice Department in a more permanent capacity, recently told lawmakers that the administration was abandoning the effort amid bipartisan backlash, he has refused to put that pledge in a written declaration to Congress.

“This is why Congress must act to comprehensively shut down this shameful shakedown once and for all,” Raskin, of Maryland, said in a statement. “The people’s representatives must decide whether to uphold the rule of law and protect taxpayer dollars—or stand aside as this unprecedented corruption spins out of control.”

Raskin is attempting to compel a floor vote on his bill through a discharge petition, where 218 signatures in support will require Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the measure up for a vote. It’s a maneuver members of both parties have deployed with success in recent months due to the GOP’s slim majority — and it’s possible it could work this time, too, with a small number of House Republicans on record opposing the fund.

It would likely face an uphill battle getting the necessary 60 votes in the Senate to become law, however: An earlier attempt from Democrats to block the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from going into effect failed in a 50-49 vote.

The fund was created out of a settlement from President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the federal government over the leak of his tax returns. While it was purportedly intended to provide financial compensation to individuals deemed victims of “lawfare,” critics worried it was designed to reward Trump’s allies.

Also as part of the settlement agreement, Trump, his family and businesses would be freed from any current audits of their taxes. Raskin’s legislation would also block that provision.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Johnson tries to clean up Trump’s Hill mess

Published

7 hours ago

June 25, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump’s obsession with the SAVE America Act has hurled Congress into indefinite gridlock.

Senators are gone until July 13 after starting their Independence Day recess a few days early.

Now House Republican lawmakers are looking toward Speaker Mike Johnson, who will Thursday head to the White House to try to convince the president to salvage the GOP’s legislative agenda.

The president’s insistence Congress pass the controversial election security legislation has ground both chambers to a halt.

The deadlock threatens to derail a host of other legislative efforts Republicans and the White House hoped to complete in the coming weeks, including a sweeping reconciliation bill filled with potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in Iran war military funding, billions of dollars in relief for farmers, fiscal 2027 funding bills and the annual defense policy bill.

“I’d like to celebrate victories, not come up with reasons why we failed,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said in an interview, joining other Republicans in venting frustration after Trump scrapped a planned signing of a major housing affordability bill Wednesday.

“We’ve demonstrated a lot of dysfunction lately,” he said.

Wednesday’s explosive lunch with Trump and GOP senators probably didn’t help.

“The president came to the Capitol to do what he thinks Senate Republican leadership can’t do: flip votes on SAVE and nuking the filibuster,” a senior Senate GOP aide told Jordain.

“He left with the same number of votes that existed when he arrived — possibly fewer.”

Now eyes are on Johnson, who has lost control of the floor as hard-liners demand the Senate pass the elections overhaul.

He’s keeping the House in session ahead of his 2 p.m. Trump meeting in hopes of salvaging plans to put several bills on the floor this week — including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures.

But if Johnson and Trump can’t reach a compromise, GOP leadership may cancel all votes for the remainder of the week and next week, too.

That would further imperil their plans for another party-line reconciliation bill and the $88 billion supplement funding request the White House transmitted Wednesday.

What else we’re watching:

— JOHNSON’S PITCH FOR RECON 3.0 FALLS SHORT: House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short. Members who attended a meeting with House Budget Republicans Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program Johnson proposed was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act. And fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.

— TRUMP’S $88B ASK FOR IRAN WAR, FARM AID: The White House sent Congress Wednesday a much-awaited request for emergency funding to cover military operations in Iran, farm assistance and disaster assistance. But the proposal could complicate House Republicans’ pursuit of a third party-line spending package, which was supposed to be centered around $350 billion in defense funding that Democrats wouldn’t support. The request for tens of billions of dollars in extra war spending comes as the House Appropriations panel Wednesday advanced a $1.1 trillion base budget plan for the Pentagon. Taken together, the three efforts represent a record-breaking roughly $1.5 trillion military budget, about a 50 percent hike from this year’s level.

Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill, Connor O’Brien and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.