(WASHINGTON) —President Donald Trump broke the law, former counsel Jack Smith told committee members Thursday at an appearance before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee.

Smith, who led investigations into Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents, is testifying publicly for first time about his probes.

“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” Smith said. “Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.”

Regarding the 2020 election, Smith said that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

 He also said the president illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“After leaving office in January of ’21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Merrill Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information withheld in a ballroom and a bathroom,” Smith said.

Smith also said that the facts and the law supported a prosecution, and that he made decisions not based on politics, but the facts and the law.

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity. If asked whether to prosecute a former president based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Democrat or a Republican,” he said.

“No one, no one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that he be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said. “To have done otherwise on the facts of these cases, would have been to shirk my duties as a prosecutor and as a public servant, of which I had no intention of doing.”

He also criticized what he said was the retribution carried out by the president and his allies against agents and prosecutors who investigated the cases.

“My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted,” he said. “The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what test and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”

In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan blasted Smith for what he called a partisan investigation into President Donald Trump and other Republicans. 

“Democrats have been going after President Trump for ten years, for a decade, and the country should never, ever forget what they did,” Jordan said. 

Jamie Raskin, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said that Smith proved that Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

“Special Counsel Smith, you pursued the facts. You followed every applicable law, ethics rule and DOJ regulation. Your decisions were reviewed by the public Integrity section. You acted based solely on the facts. The opposite of Donald Trump, who now is purporting to take over,” Raskin said. 

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, before both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.

His Thursday appearance marks Smith’s second time before the committee, after he appeared behind closed doors last month. It is customary for former special counsels to appear before Congress publicly to discuss their findings.

In his closed-door testimony, Smith defended his decision to twice bring charges against Trump — telling lawmakers his team “had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases” that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases, according to a transcript of the hearing.

And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision — contrary to allegations of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony — such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, the transcripts shows.

“No,” Smith responded continuously to those allegations, according to the transcript.

Just over an hour before his testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith’s lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released last year by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.

This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition — intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies — mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.

His team also said Smith will comply with Judge Aileen Cannon’s order that blocked the release of the second volume of his report.

Smith’s counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump “tried to obstruct justice” in the classified documents investigation “to conceal his continued retention of those documents.

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