“Having gone through the Fast and Furious and contempt, he has essentially become immune,” said civil rights lawyer John Brittain, who’s known Holder for decades. “He did show it in his body language. And we saw it when he was going back and forth with his favorite nemesis, Chairman Issa, [and] said, ‘No, I’m not going to stop talking.’”

Friends and associates say that while actions like the historic contempt votes related to Fast and Furious last June got under Holder’s skin at the time, he’s since adopted a zen-like approach to his encounters with members of Congress.

“I’ve been in his personal company recently where he’s enjoyed a drink and he seemed very relaxed and joked about some of the public battering that he takes,” Brittain said.

“Early on, he tended to take a lot of the criticism personally and be angered by it, you could see it in his answers,” Miller said. “Now, you can tell he’s much more, almost bemused by some of the criticism…The most entertaining parts of the hearing are the C-SPAN cutaways that show his reaction to be just one step short of rolling his eyes.”