‘I’m still innocent,’ says Comey as Trump calls him a ‘dirty cop’ – US politics live

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  ‘I’m still innocent,’ says Comey as Trump calls him a ‘dirty cop’

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump has called the former FBI director, James Comey, a “dirty cop”, Reuters reports.

The US justice department is attempting to prosecute Comey for a third time, on the grounds of sharing sensitive national security information in ⁠2016, according to court documents ⁠made public on Monday.

The case was revealed in a court document known as a “criminal information” that the justice department said ⁠it filed to stop the 10-year statute of limitations on the offense from expiring earlier this month.

The document, filed in Washington federal ⁠court, charges Comey with transmitting and conspiring to transmit national defense information. It alleges he shared classified information with a reporter from ‌the New York Times ‌in October 2016.

“I think he’s a dirty cop,” president Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, when asked about Comey. “I don’t know much about ‌it,” he said.

Comey said in a video on Instagram that “they’re back again” and ‌referenced the Justice Department, but did not provide further details. “I’m still innocent,” he added. Comey’s lawyers have already asked a judge to dismiss the case, arguing it is legally improper.

In other developments:

• Donald Trump campaigned in Corinth, Mississippi in support of Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith and told the crowd his rallies have “totally changed the dialogue”. “Nobody’s ever campaigned like I have for midterms,” he said.

• A vocal protester then attempted to engage the president in some dialogue, on the subject of his ballroom, and where it might be most appropriately located.

• Trump lashed out in racist terms at his predecessor, Barack Obama, for joking over the weekend that his renovation of the White House, with “gold everywhere”, has “the White House looking like Saddam Hussein open a Cheesecake Factory.”

• Trump told reporters that Obama “doesn’t notice dirt and filth” of the White House before he rehabilitated it. Trump said then that he was “a very clean person” but, “you have to explain that to Obama” because the former president doesn’t understand and is “not smart at all.”

• Trump said that the comeback victory of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, over his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, “looked like another rigged election, frankly.”