WASHINGTON ― Attorney General Pam Bondi’s devotion to defending President Donald Trump from any criticism whatsoever reached stunning heights during a very combative hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

As chairman of the committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was in charge of leading the hearing and maintaining decorum, like, for example, stopping witnesses from regularly speaking over lawmakers, or making wild, emotionally-charged or unsubstantiated statements or claims.

But Grassley did nothing of the sort on Tuesday, letting Bondi run roughshod over proceedings with interruptions, outbursts and political mudslinging.

The hearing was expressly meant as an opportunity for Congress to conduct oversight of the top law enforcement agency in the country, at a time when the administration has been accused of using a weaponized Department of Justice to pursue attacks on the president’s political enemies. Bondi was expected to face questioning about the alleged politicization, as well as the administration’s push to send federal agents and the National Guard into blue cities in defiance of local politicians.

But Bondi’s overall aim Tuesday seemed to be squarely focused on advancing Trump’s anti-Democrat agenda and going on the attack against criticism, instead of answering questions in good faith about the operations of the DOJ.

For hours, Bondi dodged questions from Democratic senators on everything from the Epstein files to Trump’s targeting of his political foes, to what authority the president has to launch fatal strikes against boats he merely claims are trafficking drugs off the coast of Venezuela, to the systematic firing of Justice Department or FBI officials who probed the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and more.

At one point, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — himself a Trump opponent who has been a subject of the president’s political targeting — ran down a laundry list of questions Bondi wouldn’t answer Tuesday, like what role she had in flagging any reference to Trump’s name in the Epstein Files, whether she approved of the mass firing of anyone who criminally investigated Trump at the DOJ or if she supported the creation of a compensation fund for Jan. 6 rioters.

Bondi’s approach to Democrats on the oversight hearing was summed up in her response to a question posed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.-Conn.) about her possible conflicts of interest amid Trump’s acceptance of a $400 million plane from the Qatari government. (Bondi lobbied on behalf of Qatar when she worked for Ballard Partners.)

“How dare you? I am a career prosecutor! Don’t you ever. Challenge. My. Integrity,” she replied, punctuating nearly every word in her sentence with a pause.

Then, she accused Blumenthal of being a liar and told him never to question her ability to be fair and impartial as attorney general.

“You lied. You admitted you lied to be an elected U.S. senator,” she railed.

Bondi was making a reference to a popular line of attack Trump has used against Blumenthal for years after the lawmaker said he “misspoke” about serving in the Vietnam War.

Often, the attorney general appeared unable or unwilling to hide her outrage. At times, her face would flush red or she would cross her arms over her chest.

As the hearing continued into its second hour, her voice became increasingly scratchy as she strained to interrupt lawmakers.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the committee’s ranking chair, told HuffPost he had “never seen anything quite like” Bondi’s performance Tuesday.

“You know, these are oversight hearings. Some of the questions are pointed and tough, but her reaction was completely out of line, and her refusal to answer the most basic questions about the issues before the department really left a lot of us feeling that she’s not doing the job she was appointed to,” Durbin said.

Sen. Adam Schiff ran down a laundry list of questions that Attorney General Pam Bondi wouldn’t answer during a very combative hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

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Bondi appeared to grow particularly frustrated when asked about border czar Tom Homan.

Homan allegedly accepted a $50,000 cash bribe from FBI agents pretending to be business executives looking for sweetheart deals in the Trump administration. Homan has denied any wrongdoing.

But when Democrats asked Bondi where the $50,000 cash went after the Justice Department closed the probe, she refused to answer.

“I’d look at your facts,” she told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) before accusing him of taking funds from “dark money groups all the time.”

“The questions here are pretty specific, so having you respond with completely irrelevant far-right internet talking points really isn’t helping here,” Whitehouse said.

When questions over Homan and the cash were raised by Schiff — whom Trump demanded Bondi investigate last month — Bondi visibly recoiled.

Schiff asked if she would, at the very least, provide the committee with audio or video of Homan allegedly accepting the bribe. The FBI made a recording of Homan’s meeting with FBI agents in September 2024.

“You can talk to [FBI] director Patel about that,” Bondi sniped.

“I’m talking to you. You’re the attorney general. This will be your decision [to release the footage or not],” Schiff said.

“You don’t have to tell me what my decision is or is not,” Bondi cut in. “You think you’ve got a ‘gotcha’ of Tom Homan.”

“I’m trying to ask a question,” Schiff said while asking for order in the hearing. “Will you support our request so that the American people should be able to see...”

Bond interrupted.

“Will you apologize to Donald Trump?” she said before more crosstalk ensued.

After four hours of grueling exchanges, Democrats came away no closer to having any insights or answers about the president’s attempts to weaponize the department against Democrats or Democratic cities, as they allege he has done with his unrequested deployments of National Guard troops into American cities like Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

“I’m not going to discuss any internal conversations with you,” Bondi told lawmakers when asked if she had even bothered to consult Trump before he deployed the troops.

When Durbin asked Bondi bluntly “What’s the secret?” about the troop deployments, Bondi launched into a political tirade.

“As you shut down the government and you’re sitting here, our law enforcement officers aren’t being paid. They’re out there working to protect you… I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” she said.

Bondi’s interactions with Republicans were markedly gentler.

One of the questions of interest to Republicans was whether anyone in the Biden White House or Biden era Justice Department had politicized the agency against Trump and conservatives in general. Just a day before Bondi’s hearing, Grassley announced that committee Republicans received records of subpoenas from the FBI indicating that in 2023, over a half dozen Republican lawmakers’ phone records had been requested as the department probed Trump and his alleged role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The contents of the calls were not revealed, just the dates and time, and the subpoenas were authorized by a grand jury. The records requests were also only made for those lawmakers that were part of a group of Republicans who planned on challenging the certification of the 2020 election. Reviewing this sort of information is common to criminal investigations.

In a fluster, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) demanded to know if Bondi thought the records request was an “abuse of power.”

Whether it was, Bondi wouldn’t say.

But she was champing at the bit to tell Graham the investigation into Jan. 6 was $50 million “wasted” and no more than an effort to “put President Trump in jail.”

Igor Bobic contributed to this reporting.