Mike Pompeo used to be one of the loudest, most partisan Republicans in the House. He called a Democratic senator “narcissistic” for releasing a report on the U.S. and torture. He branded Hillary Clinton’s response to Benghazi as “morally reprehensible” and “worse, in some ways,” than Watergate.

But now that he’s secretary of State, Pompeo has flipped the narrative, belittling Congress for “caterwauling” and lamenting how “political” his former colleagues are.

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It’s a contrast likely to be on display Wednesday, when Pompeo testifies for the first time before a Democratic-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee. His congressional past will loom over the setting as Pompeo has made moves recently that appear aimed at plotting his political future, including visiting several U.S. states, such as Iowa. As Pompeo ponders whether to run for Senate, or perhaps a higher office, he’s also showing signs of restlessness and irascibility in his role as the top U.S. diplomat.

While his defenders say Pompeo is adjusting to the duties of each job he holds, Democrats see something else.

“What you ask yourself is, ‘Who is the real Pompeo?’” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York who has clashed with the secretary over Benghazi. “I think the real Pompeo is the Pompeo who was the member of Congress who was arrogant and indignant to Hillary Clinton and others.”

When in Congress, Pompeo rarely missed a chance to slam the Obama administration, and Clinton in particular, over the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens. At one point, he said, Clinton “put her own political legacy ahead of the people that she sent into harm’s way.”

But as secretary of State, he has defended proposed State Department budget cuts some fear could prompt similar tragedies.

As a House member from Kansas, Pompeo relentlessly demanded information from the executive branch on sensitive issues such as Benghazi and the Iran nuclear deal. Now that he’s in the executive branch, however, Pompeo won’t hand over similar materials, despite repeated entreaties from legislators.

“In the public eye, he tries to appear to be a guy who is calm and thoughtful … [but] when you press him, you see who’s the real Pompeo,” Meeks said.

Democrats plan to do just that at Wednesday’s hearing. While the gathering is supposed to focus on the State Department budget, the lawmakers whom Pompeo has dissed, ignored or otherwise insulted are eager to grill the Cabinet member on a range of topics, from U.S. policy toward North Korea to President Donald Trump’s approach to autocrats.

“As a former member of Congress, the secretary takes seriously his obligation to brief members and he welcomes the opportunity,” State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino said.

Pompeo has tried to shake off his reputation of fierce partisanship since joining the Trump administration, first as CIA director and then as secretary of State. But his transition from lawmaker to Cabinet member has been uneven, with his congressional track record leaving him open to charges of hypocrisy, according to former U.S. officials, analysts and others.

In his first public speech as CIA chief, for instance, Pompeo slammed WikiLeaks as a “hostile intelligence service.” Critics quickly noted that, while in Congress, Pompeo had happily pointed to disclosures from WikiLeaks as a means of discrediting Democrats, including Clinton, the former secretary of State who lost the presidency to Trump.

A few months earlier, ahead of the Senate’s vote to confirm him as CIA director, Pompeo privately apologized for his “narcissistic” jab and other personal attacks directed at Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein after she released a bombshell report on the CIA’s use of torture during the George W. Bush administration. Feinstein accepted the apology and voted for Pompeo.

When he was later tapped to become Trump’s secretary of State, Pompeo’s made more efforts to reach out to Democrats. With his confirmation not yet a sure thing, Pompeo even called Clinton and another Democratic predecessor, John Kerry, for advice on how to run the State Department.

His defenders insist that Pompeo has grown into his role as a diplomat and Cabinet member since taking over at State. If he’s frustrated, they say, it’s because of the nature of the questions and criticisms directed at him, especially from the men and women still on Capitol Hill.

“I think as the nation’s top diplomat, he’s adjusted to being on the other side quite well,” said a person close to Pompeo, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “He answers to members of Congress, but that should be on issues of substance and not pettiness.”

Perhaps more than any other topic, Pompeo’s past focus on Benghazi haunts him now, with lawmakers constantly needling him about it.

For instance, Democrats have repeatedly asked Pompeo to turn over material related to allegations that Trump appointees engaged in political retribution against career staffers at State. Pompeo has refused, saying that because two federal offices are investigating the topic, it would be inappropriate for him to share material with Congress.

Democrats have pushed back on his logic, pointing to Pompeo’s own past demands for information about Benghazi when he was in Congress.

“As you stated when you served alongside us in the House of Representatives, it is unacceptable for Congress to take a back seat … when it comes to the crucial work of overseeing our national security apparatus,” Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrats on the Senate and House foreign relations committees, wrote in a letter to Pompeo on March 14. “You were right then, and we expect you do the right thing now.”

The most public of the Benghazi dust-ups involved Meeks.

When Pompeo appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last May, Meeks slammed him for his treatment of Clinton. “You went after her with venom,” he inveighed, questioning why Pompeo had said so little about the issue of diplomatic security since taking over at State.

Meeks also asserted that Trump’s proposed budget cuts to the State Department at the time — which Pompeo defended — could undermine security at U.S. diplomatic facilities. Trump has submitted a new budget plan this year that again includes severe cuts to State, although Congress is expected to ignore the proposal, like it did the last two years.

“Diplomatic security is not about dollars expended,” Pompeo said last year. “It’s about delivering real security. It’s about getting the right outcomes.”

Pompeo has upset Republicans as well as Democrats with his occasional stonewalling, including what lawmakers say is a refusal to pursue a serious investigation into Saudi Arabia’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Eyes rolled across the Hill when Pompeo published an op-ed accusing U.S. lawmakers of “caterwauling” over the Khashoggi case.

One exchange last year on Capitol Hill captured well how Pompeo’s pugilistic past hangs over his current interactions with Congress.

When Menendez was pressing the secretary of State to share what he knew about Trump’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Pompeo accused his questioner of playing games and engaging in a “political soliloquy.”

Menendez wasn’t having it. “Don’t talk to me about politics,” the New Jersey Democrat shot back. “Want to talk about politics? If President Obama did what President Trump did in Helsinki, I’d be peeling you off the Capitol ceiling.”

Pompeo and Menendez in particular have a testy relationship.

The secretary accuses Menendez of blocking many of his nominees for State Department leadership roles. Menendez, in turn, blames the administration for nominating people who lack proper qualifications. The two are expected to face off during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in April.

Even Pompeo’s detractors agree that the secretary of State is in a tough spot given that he serves a loyalty-demanding president with mercurial policy views. But Pompeo seems to go out of his way never to break with Trump. Even when Pompeo stakes out a different position from Trump, he nonetheless insists it’s not really different at all.

When pressed by journalists on the administration’s policies, Pompeo — especially in recent months — acts highly defensive. He has regularly cut off reporters, dismissing their questions as “ridiculous” or otherwise expresses his impatience, tsk-tsking reporters by repeating their first names.

“Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre, Deirdre,” he chided USA TODAY’s Deirdre Shesgreen in an interview earlier this month.

Pompeo is now believed to be mulling a return to the campaign trail. He may go for a Senate seat from Kansas, but there also is speculation he’s laying the groundwork for a run for Kansas governor or, eventually, the White House. There’s also speculation among Washington insiders that Pompeo wants to be Defense secretary before leaving the administration.

Pompeo and his supporters are annoyed by the chatter. “He’s not thinking about his political future,” the person close to Pompeo insisted. “He’s focused on being secretary of State and focused on the mission of being secretary of State.”

One reason Pompeo’s political ambitions have come under fresh scrutiny is because he’s visited a handful of U.S. states in recent weeks, including Iowa, a key stop for White House hopefuls, as well as Texas and Kansas. While each visit had some official reason — he spoke at an energy conference in Texas, for instance — it also raised Pompeo’s national profile.

“American diplomacy around the globe protects U.S. citizens, bolsters our national security and creates new opportunities for American businesses, and that’s a message that every single American deserves to hear,” said Palladino, the State Department deputy spokesman.

“Further,” he added, “every recent secretary of State has taken trips inside of the United States — Secretary Pompeo simply visited Iowa, Kansas and Texas, places often flown over by his predecessors, instead of Martha’s Vineyard, Boston and the Hamptons.”

Pompeo did at one point seemed to rule out a Senate run. But in one of a slew of recent interviews with Kansas news organizations, he nodded to his evangelical Christian beliefs in suggesting he might change his mind. “I try to just avoid ruling things out when there’s others who are in control,” Pompeo said. “The Lord will get me to the right place.”

In several of his interviews, Pompeo has stressed that he wants the State Department to recruit more from the American heartland. “I don’t just want folks working here who come from Washington or Boston or New York,” he told one outlet.

Pompeo’s suggestion that State Department staffers aren’t representative of the U.S. population appears to be based on flawed data, but nonetheless it’s the type of message that could play well with the Republican base.

Pompeo’s religious references, devotion to Trump and willingness to push back at lawmakers could also burnish his credentials with the GOP base, which continues to cheer the president, analysts say. Last week, in response to a question from a Christian news outlet, Pompeo said it’s “possible” that Trump is today’s version of the Bible’s Queen Esther, destined to protect the Jewish people from Iran.

“If you’re Mike Pompeo, and you think that you are the natural heir to the Trump base, what does that mean?” asked Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton aide. “It doesn’t mean playing nice with Congress. It doesn’t mean playing by the rules. It doesn’t mean being a good witness or a forthright witness or running a responsive department.

“The guy is ambitious,” Reines said. “He’s a political player.”

But the battle is not over yet. Here’s our breakdown on what happens next in Europe, and how important it will be to fight similar provisions when lobbyists push for them across the world. https://t.co/gnS01Mt952

— EFF (@EFF) March 26, 2019

House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith on Tuesday rejected a Pentagon move to shift $1 billion in funding for more Southern border barriers, and warned Pentagon leaders of stiff budget consequences if it unilaterally shifts the money.

“The committee denies this request,” Smith wrote in a letter. “The committee does not approve the proposed use of Department of Defense funds to construct additional physical barriers and road or install lighting in the vicinity of the United States border.”

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It’s unclear the extent to which Smith’s panel can deny the money movement, since the Pentagon is acting on an order from President Donald Trump and has indicated it will do so unilaterally. Smith’s letter potentially sets up a standoff between the Pentagon and the policy-writing committee as it weighs the Pentagon’s budget proposal.

On Monday evening, acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan approved $1 billion in anti-drug-trafficking funding to be diverted to build 57 miles of border fencing as well as roads and lighting aimed at blocking “11 drug-smuggling corridors.”

Top lawmakers of both parties have warned they may cut off the Pentagon’s ability to move money within its budget if defense leaders violate longstanding custom by shifting funding without asking Congress’ permission.

In a House Armed Services hearing on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2020 budget Tuesday, Smith pressed Shanahan on the consequences of shifting $1 billion without going through lawmakers.

Shanahan acknowledged that unilaterally shifting $1 billion for more border barriers will hinder the Pentagon in the future.

“The discussion … is that by unilaterally reprogramming, it was going to affect our ability long term to be able to do discretionary reprogramming that we had traditionally done in coordination,” Shanahan said. “It was a very difficult discussion, and we understand the significant downsides of losing what amounts to a privilege.”

Shanahan said the administration discussed the approach before Trump’s national emergency declaration and argued he tried to be “transparent in this process, fully knowing that there [are] downsides, which will hamper us.”

“We said, ‘Here are the risks longer term to the department,’ and those risks were weighed,” Shanahan said. “And then given a legal order from the commander in chief, we are executing on that order.”

In addition to tapping into military construction funds that had not been spent yet, the Trump administration is seeking to redirect $2.5 billion in counterdrug funds toward the barrier. Those funds are largely depleted and the Pentagon must transfer money into the account before diverting it toward the border.

Pentagon Comptroller David Norquist told lawmakers that money would come from unspent funds in Army personnel accounts.

“The source of the money … is the military personnel account. The Army was falling short of its recruiting targets,” Norquist said. “So funds that would’ve gone to pay those soldiers had they been onboard is no longer needed for that purpose.”

The fiscal 2020 Pentagon budget proposal includes $7.2 billion in emergency funding for border barriers. That total is evenly split between funding for new barriers and replenishing the $3.6 billion the Trump administration is seeking to raid from military construction accounts this fiscal year.

Democrats have blasted the Pentagon over a lack of specifics on how it will help fund the border wall, as well as the deployment of troops to the border in support of the Homeland Security Department.

Under questioning from lawmakers, Shanahan said the department’s border mission won’t affect top Pentagon readiness and modernization priorities, noting border barrier funding amounts to less than one percent of the entire national defense budget request.

But the concern about the effect of freezing the Pentagon’s ability to shift money was bipartisan.

“I also agree with the chairman that changing decades of reprogramming practice is going to have difficult consequences for the whole government, but especially for the Department of Defense,” said ranking Republican Mac Thornberry of Texas.

The House is slated to vote Tuesday on overriding Trump’s veto of a resolution to terminate his national emergency declaration on the border, but that vote is expected to come up short.

Democrats deflated by the anticlimactic end to Robert Mueller’s Russia probe desperately wanted to change the subject — and the Trump administration was only happy to oblige.

House and Senate Democrats on Tuesday seized on the Justice Department’s endorsement of a federal court ruling to eliminate Obamacare in its entirety, immediately renewing attacks on the GOP for trying to gut the law’s popular protections and rip health coverage from more than 20 million Americans.

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The administration’s surprise decision — a shift from its prior stance that only parts of the Affordable Care Act should be thrown out — offered a unifying moment for Democrats still grappling with the news that Mueller would not charge President Donald Trump with any crimes, and comes as the party readies a fresh legislative offensive on health care.

“It’s disgusting. It’s horrible,” said Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, the no. 4 House Democrat. “It’s what they were trying to do during the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, it’s what Republicans were doing when they filed the lawsuit. The president’s been clear about his position the whole time.”

And even as Democrats decried the move, they also saw it as a political goldmine.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) told Democrats in a closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday that the DOJ’s decision was “a gift” to Democrats, who have struggled for months to keep the focus on their legislative agenda and not all things Mueller.

Some House Democrats were careful not to publicly gloat exiting the meeting Tuesday morning.

“I hate to look at it that way because that makes it look like a game,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), who leads House Democrats’ campaign arm. “We know what we’re fighting for.”

But other lawmakers were privately ecstatic about the Trump administration’s decision to essentially to trample all over its own good news cycle and turn the attention back to an issue that Democrats used to win back the House.

“It’s really outrageous. I don’t understand if Republicans weren’t present for the last election but if there was an issue that was deeply critical, it was health care,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said after the meeting.

It’s “not only immoral, it’s a really bad political decision for them,” she added.

Ways and Means health subcommittee chair Lloyd Doggett called the DOJ’s late Monday filing a needed reminder to stay focused on concrete policy issues, while others held it up as evidence of the yawning gap between Democrats and Republicans on a topic that voters care deeply about.

“We’re going to introduce a bill to protect and strengthen the ACA. That’s the responsible thing to do,” said Rep. Donna Shalala. “They’re being irresponsible, and they’re putting 20 million people in this country at risk.”

Indeed, House Democrats had planned a pivot to health care even before the Trump administration late Monday announced its support for a federal judge’s December ruling that the entire ACA should be invalidated because Congress eliminated its individual mandate penalty in the GOP tax law.

Democrats are rolling out a wide-ranging Obamacare package aimed at shoring up the law’s benefits while reversing several of the Trump administration main health priorities — a bid to follow through on the campaign-trail vows that helped propel them into the House majority.

The package is largely a rehash of policies that Democrats pitched last year, like expanding the Obamacare subsidies meant to help Americans afford health coverage and restoring outreach funding that Trump slashed over the past two years. It would also rescind new regulations expanding cheaper, skimpier health plans that the administration has touted for providing greater choice, but Democrats have derided as “junk” insurance.

Their plan gained new significance in the wake of the Trump administration’s legal action, providing vulnerable Democrats with concrete legislation to hype for their swing-district voters and a powerful tool to use against Republicans who refuse to endorse any Obamacare-related measures even as they insist they want to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.

For Republicans, meanwhile, the Justice Department’s move threatens to put them back on the defensive just days after what was arguably their biggest victory of the Trump era.

The White House and close Trump allies on the Hill have battered Democrats over Attorney General William Barr’s summary concluding that Mueller found no collusion between Trump and Russia. GOP lawmakers are calling for a series of counter-investigations and declaring that the special counsel’s support will help reinvigorate support for Trump ahead of his 2020 run.

But Republicans have so far remained fairly quiet in the aftermath of the DOJ filing in a case that few view as politically advantageous. And those who did have an initial reaction expressed exasperation at the disconnect between the Trump administration and the Hill on health care.

“Do we have a plan? What’s our plan,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who opposed the party’s repeal efforts two years ago. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Republicans kept the Senate in part by vowing that they were fighting for pre-existing conditions despite the Trump administration’s support for a lawsuit undercutting them. They argued that they would work swiftly to reinstate those protections if the lawsuit succeeded, despite the Senate GOP’s failure to pass a new health care law in 2017.

Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in an interview that the issue should get another hearing in the Supreme Court after the tax law hollowed out Obamacare’s individual mandate.

“Based upon our taking the individual mandate out, the rationale for the Supreme Court decision is no longer valid,” Grassley said. “Having a second trial, a separate determination on the constitutionality, is legitimate.”

But the issue is a new headache given the new Senate map: Democrats have gone from defending 10 states that Trump won in 2018 to launching campaigns against incumbents in places like Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina and Maine. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has been particularly outspoken in opposition to the administration’s support of the lawsuit.

Senate Democrats discussed the change in political fortunes on Tuesday morning at a leadership meeting and emerged eager to flip the script on Republicans who were ebullient about Mueller’s findings just a day before. Now with a serious battle for Senate control developing in purple and blue states, Democrats say they have the political upper hand on an issue their House counterparts used to devastating effect in 2018.

“It turns the page back to our issue,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). The Trump administration has “revived the most important issue in the 2018 election and they couldn’t have done it more convincingly than to say that Trump and his White House are out to eliminate the Affordable Care Act.”

Vulnerable Republicans across Capitol Hill had struggled to reconcile their support for pre-existing condition protections in the run-up to the midterms with the administration’s original stance that Obamacare’s core patient benefits should be eliminated.

This latest shift only appears to have further cornered the GOP.

“The administration is very happy with the Mueller report. So are our Republican friends. This move by the Trump administration to take away health care will prove far more detrimental to the administration and the Republican Party than any gains they might have made by the [findings] of Mr. Barr’s letter,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Even Doug Jones of Alabama, by far the most endangered Senate Democrat next year, was singing the same tune as party leaders.

“I’m outraged. It’s going to hurt my state really bad if that were to go forward,” Jones said in an interview. “They couldn’t do in this chamber what they wanted to do, which is completely dismantle and disintegrate it. So they’re trying to blow it up in any way possible.”

Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan contributed to this report.