Sen. Angus King (I., Maine) said Thursday that more information is needed before assessing whether President Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice.
CNN's Gloria Borger asked King whether a case of obstructing justice could be made against Trump. King serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, allowing him access to classified information not presented in former FBI Director James Comey's open hearing earlier in the day.
"That's not my job to make that call. That's all about special counsel," he said.
"I think there's a lot of information we still need," King added. "We need more information about what the president said to these other intelligence community members."
King emphasized the goal of opposing Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections. He said recently that a strong response to Russia ought to be a nonpartisan issue.
"Our committee is looking at the facts of what happened and trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening again," King said.
"It's absolutely clear what the Russians did, what they tried to do, and that they will come back and do it again. That's the important question," he continued.
He told Borger that he wanted to leave the matter of Trump’s culpability to special counsel Robert Mueller.
"I will leave to the special counsel and ultimately the legal system whether there was—"
"But Congress might ultimately have to decide on obstruction," Borger interjected.
"Well, we might, but we're a long way from that," King said.