Attorney General Pam Bondi’s approach on Tuesday to fielding hostile questions posed by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee about the perceived political weaponization of the Justice Department was simple and brutal: Don’t answer, just attack.

Ms. Bondi attempted to cast more than four hours of stonewalling senatorial queries about decisions on her watch as an aggrieved defense of President Trump, herself and other administration appointees.

Ms. Bondi’s calculated bombast at the oversight hearing reflected an effort across the Trump administration to flip potentially damaging — or revealing — moments of public accountability into opportunities to savage political opponents.

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the committee, opened the questioning by asking if the White House had consulted Ms. Bondi on the deployment of federal troops to Chicago. She ignored the question and instead raised her voice to accuse Mr. Durbin, a 28-year veteran of the Senate who has delivered billions of dollars in criminal justice funding to his state, of disloyalty to his constituents.

“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” she said.

Oversight hearings have always had elements of political theater. But the approach taken by Ms. Bondi, and previously by the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has been different from that taken by any of their predecessors. It is characterized by a contemptuous refusal to even cursorily address inconvenient questions and the use of prepared attacks against Democrats to change the subject and drown out criticism.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, asked her 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.