FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday dismissed WikiLeaks as a legitimate news source, calling the website “intelligence porn.”

Comey was pressed by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on whether the agency considers WikiLeaks a news source.

The FBI head called the site an “important focus” of investigations and said he does not consider it a news source.

ADVERTISEMENT

“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 … without regard to the First Amendment values that normally underly press reporting, and simply becomes a conduit for the Russian intelligence services … just to push out information to damage the United States,” Comey said.

“There’s nothing that even smells journalist about some of this content.”