The big question going into Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with former FBI Director James Comey was whether Comey would state whether he believed the President committed obstruction of justice.

Comey refused to state his opinion on that. But NBC’s Chuck Todd thinks Comey stopped just short of doing so.

“Comey was very careful not to allege [obstruction],” Todd said. “He walked up to the line. He is giving Robert Mueller the opportunity to see if that, indeed, ends up being the case. But he stopped short there.”

That said, Todd admitted that there was no “smoking gun.”

“If you’re a democrat looking for the smoking gun behind motive, you didn’t get it,” Todd said.

But overall, Todd thinks the hearing will be impossible to spin for the President’s press team.

“You’ve got specific things you can defend the president on,” Todd said. “But atmospherically, big picture, this is a horrendous day for this presidency.”

Watch above, via NBC.

[featured image via screengrab]

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