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.”

The House passed a major GOP elections overhaul Wednesday after intense pressure from President Donald Trump, tech mogul Elon Musk and hard-right influencers. But the legislation still has no clear path forward in the Senate, where Republicans privately acknowledge there is not enough GOP support to skirt a Democratic filibuster as Trump is demanding.

The SAVE America Act, an updated version of a bill tightening voter registration standards that the House passed last year, was approved on a 218-213 vote. One Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, voted for it — down from the four who backed the earlier effort.

Conservative hard-liners wanted the bill attached to a massive government funding package this month, threatening to extend a four-day partial government shutdown until Trump intervened and ordered House Republicans to pass the bill without it.

The legislation would trigger major changes to how Americans vote, including requiring voters to present proof of citizenship to register, eliminating mail-only registrations, and requiring photo ID in every state for the first time. It would also require states to take new steps to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls.

The GOP’s hope is that the focus on election integrity and Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” will help drive turnout among MAGA voters when Trump isn’t on the ballot this November, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy. The vote is also meant to satisfy the president’s demands for a voting crackdown as he mulls bigger overhauls many Republicans oppose, like “federalizing” America’s election system and ending mail voting.

But the House vote hands a hot potato to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has ruled out changing Senate rules to weaken the 60-voter supermajority threshold to pass the bill and has reacted coolly to suggestions a “talking filibuster” approach could work instead.

House GOP leaders deployed a procedural feint, using a Senate-passed shell bill to try to fast-track consideration in the other chamber — part of the Trump-backed push to try to force a reckoning on the filibuster.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) poured cold water on House Republicans’ celebratory mood this week.

Even before the House vote Wednesday, Murkowski announced she would oppose it — lambasting the bill as “federal overreach.” Her move sparked an onslaught of recriminations from House Republicans, who are still pushing Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson to find a way to send the bill to Trump’s desk.

Attorney General Pam Bondi gave no direct answer Wednesday when pressed by Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) on whether the Justice Department has made any effort to question Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about his interactions with Jeffrey Epstein.

“Secretary Lutnick has addressed those ties himself,” Bondi replied.

Lutnick said on a podcast last year that he was disgusted by Epstein’s conduct and vowed in 2005 to never to be in the same room with him again. However, documents the Justice Department released last month show continued interactions between the two men in the ensuing years.

In addition, Lutnick acknowledged at a Senate hearing Tuesday that he and his family traveled in 2012 to the Caribbean island Epstein owned. Lutnick described a lunch with the financier, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida and who died by suicide in 2019 in a New York jail while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

Lutnick, despite the latest revelations, has faced few recriminations from Trump world over his connections with the late financier.

As Balint demanded that Bondi explain whether prosecutors or the FBI have talked with Lutnick or other Trump administration officials who had “ties” with Epstein, the attorney general challenged the lawmaker’s terminology.

“What does ‘ties’ mean?” Bondi replied. “Can you define that? Can you define ‘ties’?”

“I think Americans would be shocked to learn that you are not interested in talking with these officials who have ties to Jeffrey Epstein,” Balint replied as the attorney general tried to change the subject to the shooting of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont last month. “We now know that Lutnick went to Epstein’s island in 2012. How was that not a dealbreaker for the president?” the Democratic lawmaker asked.