House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R – MI) has been determined to portray all media coverage of the NSA surveillance as criminal activity for awhile, but dialed up the allegations dramatically today, terming Glenn Greenwald a “thief” who is “selling stolen material.”

Rogers pressed FBI Director James Comey on the issue today, saying Greenwald is “fencing stolen material” and pushing Comey on whether or not that’s a crime. Comey said it was a difficult question with “First Amendment implications.” This seemed to visibly annoy Rogers, who kept pressing on the “active investigation” and any “accomplices” that might be getting probed.

Whether anything Rogers said was grounded in reality is another matter entirely. Greenwald says he has never once sold any documents related to anything, and that reporting on NSA surveillance was not “fencing stolen material.”

“What they’re trying to do is to remove it from the realm of journalism, so that they can then criminalize it,” said Greenwald, saying he is reporting on classified material the same way other journalists are.