WATCH: FBI Director Patel grilled on Epstein files in House hearing

The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee sharply criticized FBI Director Kash Patel in a hearing Wednesday.

Watch in the player above.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland told Patel at an oversight hearing that he was running the FBI not as a law enforcement agency but as a “political enforcement agency working directly for the president’s vengeance campaign.”

READ MORE: 3 takeaways from Kash Patel’s tense Senate oversight hearing

Raskin said it’s “impossible to overstate the destruction, chaos and demoralization you’ve brought to the FBI and its workforce,” and likened Patel to the infamous and longest-serving FBI director in history, J. Edgar Hoover.

Patel defended himself during his opening statement, saying the FBI under his watch had helped reduce violent crime and had arrested 23,000 violent criminals.

Trump ‘absolutely not’ implicated in Epstein sex trafficking investigation, FBI director says

Patel also testified that he doesn’t know offhand how many times President Donald Trump’s name is in the Epstein files, but he’s “absolutely not implicated.”

Repeatedly pressed by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee about why the FBI and Justice Department said in July that they would not disclose additional evidence from the case, Patel said the material not shared largely consists of child sex abuse material that’s unfit for public release, and other information is protected from release by court orders.

READ MORE: See Epstein’s full ‘birthday book,’ with alleged personal messages from Trump, Clinton and others

Democrat Dan Goldman accused Patel of being part of a “coverup.” Patel asserted that the Trump administration had released more than prior administrations.

FBI director suggests he’ll look into Epstein birthday letter

Patel was pressed by Rep. Jared Moskowitz over whether the FBI would investigate Trump’s claim that the sexually suggestive birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein purportedly carrying the president’s signature was forged.

WATCH: Sen. Kennedy presses FBI Director Patel to release the Epstein files

The letter was released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee earlier this month after being handed over by the Epstein estate. Trump has denied writing the letter and creating the drawing.

Moskowitz, a Democrat from Florida, asked Patel whether he would open an investigation into Epstein’s estate over the letter.

Patel initially responded: “On what basis?” But when Moskowitz pressed again, Patel responded: “Sure, I’ll do it.”

It was not immediately clear whether the FBI would formally open an investigation or what such a probe would involve.