​Rep. Peter King slammed special counsel Robert Mueller for not informing President Trump and the American public sooner that there was no collusion between the Russians and Trump or his campaign associates.

“It couldn’t have taken Bob Mueller that long to find out ​[about collusion.] The reports we get are that they knew a year ago there was no collusion. Well, didn’t [Mueller] have an obligation to tell the ​p​resident of the United States that? To let the world know?​” King told John Catsimatidis on his AM 970 show “The Cats Roundtable” in an interview that aired Sunday.

The Long Island Republican ​said having the accusations unresolved damaged Trump’s standing on the world stage and hindered his ability to carry out the important work of his administration.

“The president has gone off to negotiate with Kim Jong ​U​n. He is involved, obviously, in very sensitive negotiations all the time in the Middle East​,” King said, referring to the North Korean leader. “To have this cloud hanging over him, with foreign leaders that may think, ​’​Hey, he may be indicted for treason. He may be charged with conspiring with the enemy.​'”​

King said too long of a gap occurred between Mueller’s appointment in May 2017 and when he submitted his report to the Justice Department on March 22.

“I think that the Mueller people had an obligation to tell the president. To tell the country. To tell the world, that there was no collusion whatsoever as soon as they found out there was none​,” he said.

​”​You’re talking about, whether you like him or not, he is the leader of the country. The leader of the Free World. And they let ​[collusion] hang over him for at least a year​,” King continued. “It was wrong not to make it known.​”​

The president’s former lawyer John Dowd, said Mueller was handling the political and public side of his investigation.

“As far as we knew and it’s now been confirmed by key people like Comey and Page and Strzok that during that time in 2017 they had nothing, they had no basis, and the president knew they had nothing and he wasn’t worried about it at all. So he didn’t hesitate to call it a hoax,” Dowd told “The Byron York Show” podcast on April 3.

He was referring to former FBI Director James Comey, former campaign associate Carter Page and former FBI agent Peter Strzok who was part of the counterintelligence team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.