US Attorney General Pam Bondi launched into a passionate defense of President Donald Trump on Wednesday as she tried to turn the page from relentless criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, repeatedly shouting at Democrats during a combative hearing.

Besieged by questions over Epstein and accusations of a weaponised Justice Department, Bondi aggressively pivoted in an extraordinary speech in which she mocked her Democratic questioners, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.

“You sit here and you attack the president and I’m not going to have it," Bondi told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. "I am not going to put up with it.”

With victims of Epstein seated behind her in the hearing room, Bondi forcefully defended the department's handling of the files related to the well-connected financier that have dogged her tenure.

The hearing quickly devolved into a partisan brawl, with Bondi repeatedly lobbing insults at Democrats while insisting she was not “going to get in the gutter” with them.

In one particularly fiery exchange, the panel's ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin accused Bondi of refusing to answer his questions, prompting the attorney general to call the top Democrat on the committee a “washed-up loser lawyer – not even a lawyer.”

Thomas ⁠Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, who helped lead the effort to require the files' release, accused the Justice Department of a "massive failure" to comply with the law as he questioned why billionaire Leslie Wexner's name was redacted in an FBI document listing potential co-conspirators in the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.

Bondi said Wexner's name appeared numerous times in other files the department released and that the DOJ unredacted his name on the document "within 40 minutes" of Massie spotting it.

"Forty minutes of me catching you red-handed," Massie replied.

Bondi told Massie that he was only focused on the files because Trump is mentioned in them, calling him a “hypocrite” with “Trump-derangement syndrome."

She repeatedly deflected other questions from Democrats, responding instead with attacks as she sought to paint them as uninterested about violence in their districts.

Democrats became exasperated as Bondi declined time and again to directly answer.

“This is pathetic. I am not asking trick questions," said Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat who tried to ask Bondi whether the Justice Department had questioned different Trump administration officials about their ties to Epstein. “The American people deserve to know.”

In her opening remarks, Bondi told Epstein victims to come forward to law enforcement with any information and about their abuse and said she “deeply sorry” for what they had suffered.

She told the survivors that “any accusation of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated.”

But she refused when pressed by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal to turn and face the Epstein victims in the audience and apologise for what Trump's Justice Department has “put them through" and accused the Democrat of “theatrics.”

Bondi’s appearance before the Republican-controlled panel came the day after a federal grand jury declined to indict six Democratic lawmakers over a video they made urging the US military not to comply with unlawful orders.

The department’s tradition of independence in criminal investigations has eroded as ⁠it has pursued investigations into Trump’s political adversaries and aligned with his grievances.

It unsuccessfully sought to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, two officials who led investigations into Trump. (AP/Reuters)