FBI Director James Comey tells a Senate panel that WikiLeaks seeks to damage the United States and does \u201cnothing that even smells journalistic.\u201d Comey doesn\u2019 t say whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will face criminal charges.<\/b>
\nFBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that the radical transparency group WikiLeaks should not be considered a legitimate journalistic organization because it trafficked in \u201cintelligence porn\u201d and sought to damage the United States.
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing that even smells journalistic about some of this conduct, \u201d Comey told a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Comey\u2019s broadside marked the second time in less than a month that a senior intelligence or law enforcement official had cast WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, as deeply hostile to the United States. CIA Director Mike Pompeo on April 13 called WikiLeaks a stateless \u201chostile intelligence service\u201d and Assange a \u201cnarcissist\u201d and \u201ca coward hiding behind a screen.\u201d
Asked whether the Justice Department had formulated charges against Assange over the release of classified U. S. documents and files, Comey said, \u201cI don\u2019 t want to confirm whether or not there are charges pending, \u201d noting only that \u201cWikiLeaks is an important focus of our attention.\u201d
WikiLeaks has been a thorn in the side of the U. S. government for a decade since its founding, obtaining and releasing millions of secret documents. Some fans, including Hollywood celebrities like Pamela Anderson, have lauded the group\u2019s disclosures for revealing the reach of U. S. intelligence and surveillance activities.
Comey acknowledged that \u201cthere are Americans \u2013 well-meaning, thoughtful people \u2013 who think that WikiLeaks might just be a journalistic outfit.\u201d
In a charge that brought an immediate rebuttal on Twitter from Assange, the FBI chief asserted that WikiLeaks does not comport to usual journalistic standards.
\u201cIn my view, a huge portion of WikiLeaks\u2019 activities has nothing to do with legitimate newsgathering, informing the public, commenting on important public controversies, but is simply about leaking classified information to damage the United States, \u201d Comey said.
\u201cPeople sometimes get cynical about journalists. American journalists do not do that. They will almost always call us before they publish classified information and say, \u2018Is there anything about this that is going to put lives in danger?\u2019 \u201d Comey said.
\u201cThey work with us to try to accomplish their important First Amendment goals by safeguarding those interests, \u201d he said. \u201cThe activity I\u2019 m talking about \u2013 WikiLeaks \u2013 involves no such considerations whatsoever. It\u2019s what I said to you, intelligence porn, just push it out in order to damage.\u201d
In a tweet, Assange said WikiLeaks had consulted the FBI before the release last month of part of a dump of more than 8,000 documents taken from a CIA hacking unit, a release that it calls Vault7 .
\u201cJames Comey just mislead (sic) the Senate while under oath when said Wikileaks \u2018doesn\u2019 t call us\u2019 . We did over #Vault7 and I know he knows it, \u201d Assange tweeted.
Assange entered the embassy in London nearly five years ago amid an investigation in Sweden over an alleged sexual assault, saying he feared Sweden would turn him over to U. S. authorities to stand criminal trial.
Sweden delayed sending prosecutors to take Assange\u2019s testimony until last fall, and it has declined to pledge that the Australian national won\u2019 t be handed over to U. S. authorities.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., peppered Comey with questions about whether Assange had been charged with a crime in the United States. Comey did not answer directly. After the hearing, Sasse said he believed Assange was an enemy of U. S. democracy.
\u201cIf Assange was truly the free speech champion he claims to be, he wouldn\u2019 t be collaborating with a Russian thugocracy that murders journalists, \u201d Sasse said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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