{"id":18889,"date":"2026-02-12T00:31:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-democrats-think-pam-bondi-just-helped-them-in-the-midterms\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T00:31:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:31:40","slug":"house-democrats-think-pam-bondi-just-helped-them-in-the-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/house-democrats-think-pam-bondi-just-helped-them-in-the-midterms\/","title":{"rendered":"House Democrats think Pam Bondi just helped them in the midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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.<\/p>\n

For four hours, the nation\u2019s top law enforcement officer largely refused to answer questions from Democrats about the Justice Department\u2019s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cburn book.\u201d<\/p>\n

In others, she responded by lashing out at committee members in personal terms, at one point calling Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the panel\u2019s top Democrat, a \u201cwashed-up, loser lawyer \u2014 not even a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had the power, we would subpoena her, and we would require her to answer our questions,\u201d Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, told reporters following the hearing. \u201cSo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 the purported purpose of Wednesday\u2019s proceedings \u2014 suggests she will not cooperate easily.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe questions I\u2019ve asked \u2026 are not trick questions, they\u2019re not gotcha questions, they\u2019re actually basic questions about how the Department of Justice functions,\u201d said Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), who said the hearing lacked \u201csome modicum of resembling something that has typically been fairly conventional: an oversight hearing of the Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/u><\/a> for ties to Epstein\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n

Bondi said vaguely, \u201cWe have pending investigations in our office.\u201d It was not clear whether she was referring to investigations into prominent Democratic officials, which had come after a directive from President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Still, Democrats think Bondi\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

“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,\u201d Raskin said following the hearing.<\/p>\n

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a member of the Judiciary panel, also said the events Wednesday boost Democrats\u2019 case in the midterm elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe did an excellent job in appealing to Donald Trump, and it was [for] \u2026 one person audience: Donald Trump,\u201d said Cohen, adding that the hearing \u201cgave the public some information about what the Justice Department’s not doing correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways, Bondi played directly into Democrats\u2019 hands, and not only by trash-talking lawmakers whose questions she didn\u2019t want to answer \u2014 similar to the maneuver she deployed when testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee<\/u><\/a> back in October.<\/p>\n

Democrats coordinated with the victims of Epstein\u2019s 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\u2019s conduct or meet with the victims.<\/p>\n

Bondi, in her opening remarks, said she was \u201cdeeply sorry for what any victim \u2026 has been through\u201d but otherwise refused to take the bait. At one point, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked Bondi to apologize to the victims<\/u><\/a> for what the Justice Department has put them through, Bondi declined: \u201cI\u2019m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats also headed into Wednesday\u2019s high-profile hearing prepared to draw a contrast<\/u><\/a> between their interest in asking hard questions about events that have captured the public\u2019s attention \u2014 namely justice for Epstein\u2019s victims and accountability for any potential accomplices \u2014 and Republicans\u2019 more politically accommodating approach.<\/p>\n

Jordan said on Wednesday evening he thought Bondi \u201chandled herself very well\u201d and expected Democrats to be aggressive. At one point, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) yelled at Bondi to be \u201cquiet\u201d as he fought to be heard, while Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) called her \u201cone of the worst\u201d attorneys generals \u201cin our history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it went great \u2014 I mean, the bottom line is \u2026 under the leadership of the Attorney General and the president, crime is down,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n

The only Republican who challenged Bondi<\/u><\/a> was Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the charge to release the Epstein files in DOJ\u2019s possession and picked enough fights with Trump that the president and his allies are now seeking to oust him in a primary.<\/p>\n

Accusing Bondi of failing to comply with the law he shepherded through Congress with sloppy redactions \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 of both victims and the name of one powerful man in the Epstein files, Bondi called Massie a \u201cfailed politician\u201d and a \u201chypocrite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie, in an interview Wednesday evening, said it took Bondi \u201ca long time to find my insult card.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she was crashing the whole time,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was no effort really to answer any of the difficult questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about being the only Republican to ask a tough question at the hearing, Massie replied, \u201cNobody wants to get on the bad side of Trump \u2026 That\u2019ll change once we get past our primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s top law enforcement officer largely refused to answer questions from Democrats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}