The last time Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before a congressional panel was in October, when she stonewalled Democrats for four hours and read from a list of scripted insults in response to their questioning of her conduct.
But that stall-and-brawl strategy is not likely to work as well when she testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. She is expected to face bipartisan skepticism over her handling, and perceived bungling, of the release of the investigative files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
For Republicans, the never-ending Epstein fiasco has defined Ms. Bondi’s tenure in much the same way that her willingness to execute President Trump’s commands has tarnished her in the eyes of Democrats.
Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky and a member of the Judiciary Committee, has frequently criticized Ms. Bondi and her top deputy, Todd Blanche, over the handling of the files, accusing them of slow-walking or blocking the release of some material.
Mr. Massie, a co-author of the bipartisan law that forced the Justice Department and F.B.I. to release all of the files, suggested in an interview on CNN on Tuesday that he would grill Ms. Bondi over the files. “She’s been all over the map,” he said, adding that she had “no credibility” over the matter.
Democrats are also lining up to question Ms. Bondi on the Epstein files.
But they are also expected to fiercely criticize the attorney general over her willingness to pursue dubious cases against Mr. Trump’s foes, and over the Justice Department’s actions after the killing of two U.S. citizens during protests against immigration enforcement in Minneapolis.
The atmosphere is expected to be far different — and chillier — than her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall, when Republicans rallied to Ms. Bondi’s defense in the face of withering questioning from Democrats.
Oversight hearings have always had elements of political theater. But the approach taken by Ms. Bondi and the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has been different from that taken by their predecessors. It has been characterized by a refusal to even cursorily address questions they might view as inconvenient, and by the use of prepared attacks against Democrats to change the subject and drown out criticism.
In the fall, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, pressed Ms. Bondi about the Justice Department’s decision to drop an investigation into Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, who was recorded in September 2024 accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash in an undercover F.B.I. investigation.
“What became of the $50,000?” Mr. Whitehouse asked.
Ms. Bondi did not answer the question, and instead attacked Mr. Whitehouse by demanding to know why he once took campaign donations from Reid Hoffman, a Democratic donor named in the Epstein files.
Democrats ridiculed her evasiveness.
“Attorney General Bondi made up nonsense to avoid answering,” Mr. Whitehouse said.
But her combativeness earned plaudits with the critic who mattered most, Mr. Trump, according to people in Ms. Bondi’s orbit.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
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