(AP) — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his investigations of Donald Trump at a congressional hearing where he insisted that he had acted without regard to politics and had no second thoughts about the criminal charges he brought.

Smith testified behind closed doors last month but returned to the House Judiciary Committee for a public hearing, where Republican lawmakers sought to undermine him and Democrats hoped to elicit new and damaging testimony about Trump’s conduct.

Smith told lawmakers that he stood behind his decision as special counsel to bring charges against Trump in separate cases that accused the Republican of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after he left the White House.

The hearing unfolded against the backdrop of an ongoing Trump administration retribution campaign targeting the investigators who scrutinized the Republican president.