In his testimony on Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey said he expected Russia would continue trying to sway future U.S. elections. | AP Photo Comey slams WikiLeaks as ‘intelligence porn’

FBI Director James Comey slammed WikiLeaks as “intelligence porn” on Wednesday, accusing the anti-secrecy group of serving as a conduit for Russian and other foreign intelligence agencies to publish stolen information intended to damage the United States.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey was asked why the United States had not charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with a crime. Comey said he had to be careful with his answer, because he did not want to confirm whether there were charges pending against Assange, but then responded: “He hasn't been apprehended because he is inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.”


Assange, facing an extradition request from Sweden over allegations of sexual assault, has been granted asylum by Ecuador and holed up in the country’s London embassy since 2012.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) pressed Comey to explain the difference between Wikileaks and legitimate journalism protected under the Constitution's First Amendment.

“To my mind it crosses a line when it moves from being about trying to educate a public and instead just becomes about intelligence porn, frankly, just pushing out information about sources and methods without regard to interests,” Comey responded.

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He added that “American journalists” who obtain classified information usually call the government before publishing to determine if any lives would be put in danger. “This activity I'm talking about WikiLeaks involves no such considerations whatsoever,” he said.

Assange responded on Twitter, writing: “James Comey just mislead the Senate while under oath when said Wikileaks ‘doesn't call us’. We did over #Vault7 and I know he knows it.”

Vault 7 refers to large batches of information that WikiLeaks began publishing in March that revealed many of the CIA’s apparent hacking techniques.

In his testimony on Wednesday, Comey also said he expected Russia, which the U.S. intelligence community believes provided WikiLeaks with stolen emails during the presidential election to damage Hillary Clinton, would continue trying to sway future U.S. elections.

“I think one of the lessons that particularly the Russians may have drawn from this is that this works,” he said. “I expect to see them back in 2018, especially in 2020.”

He called Russia “the greatest threat of any nation on earth, given their intention and capability,” to U.S. political systems.