Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and President Trump’s personal and campaign lawyer, has tested positive for the coronavirus, Mr. Trump announced on Twitter on Sunday.
“@RudyGiuliani, by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, and who has been working tirelessly exposing the most corrupt election (by far!) in the history of the USA, has tested positive for the China Virus. Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!!!” Mr. Trump wrote. It was unclear why Mr. Trump was the one announcing it.
Mr. Giuliani was at Georgetown University Medical Center, according to a person who was aware of his condition but not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Giuliani, at age 76, is in the high-risk category for the virus.
Mr. Giuliani has repeatedly been exposed to the virus through contact with infected people, including during Mr. Trump’s preparation for his first debate against President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. in September, just before the president tested positive, as well as when he appeared with his son, Andrew, at a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters about two weeks ago. Andrew Giuliani, who works as an aide in the White House, said on Nov. 20 that he had tested positive, days after Donald Trump Jr. did.
Mr. Giuliani has been acting as the lead lawyer for Mr. Trump’s efforts to overthrow the results of the election. He has repeatedly claimed he has evidence of widespread fraud, but he has declined to submit that evidence in legal cases he has filed.
His infection is the latest in a string of outbreaks among those in the president’s orbit. Boris Epshteyn, a member of the Trump campaign legal team, tested positive late last month. The same day, Mr. Giuliani attended a meeting of Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania about allegations of voting irregularities. One of the lawmakers at that meeting was notified shortly after while at the White House that he had tested positive.
Mark Meadows, the president’s chief of staff, and at least eight others in the White House and Mr. Trump’s circle, tested positive in the days before and after Election Day.
Mr. Trump was hospitalized on Oct. 2 after contracting the coronavirus. Kayleigh McEnany, the president’s press secretary, Corey Lewandowski, a campaign adviser, and Ben Carson, the housing secretary, are among those in the president’s circle who have tested positive this fall.
Mr. Giuliani appeared on Fox News earlier on Sunday. Speaking with the host Maria Bartiromo via satellite, Mr. Giuliani repeated baseless claims about fraud in Georgia and Wisconsin on “Sunday Morning Futures.” When asked if he believed Mr. Trump still had a path to victory, he said, “We do.”
Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis exaggerates her experience and credentials.
“Ellis broke into the legal profession in 2012 as a deputy district attorney in Weld County, Colo., a largely rural area that would soon make headlines for a failed attempt to secede from the rest of the state because some residents resented the growing dominance of more liberal communities to the south like Denver. Ms. Ellis prosecuted crimes like theft and assault,” the Times reports. “A review of her professional history, as well as interviews with more than a half-dozen lawyers who have worked with her, show that Ms. Ellis, 36, is not the seasoned constitutional law expert she plays on TV. … Since she graduated law school in 2011, nothing in her record in the courtroom … shows any time spent litigating election law cases. …
“She has never appeared in federal district or circuit court … and does not appear to have played a major role in any cases beyond her criminal and civil work in Colorado. … The Trump campaign provided the name of one federal case in which it said Ms. Ellis had participated, in 2012, when she was a year out of law school. But her name is not among the lawyers listed in the decision, and the case was not heard in a regular federal court, but rather in an administrative tribunal. … Lawyers who worked with Ms. Ellis said that she was not the kind of attorney they believed would be particularly helpful to this or any president in these endeavors, given her background. … In 2015 she joined Colorado Christian University as an affiliate faculty member … Colorado Christian does not have a law school or a program in constitutional law. … Eventually she was made an assistant professor of legal studies — but never a ‘professor of constitutional law,’ which is how she identified herself in pieces for The Washington Examiner.”
“I’m the Cinderella story of the legal world,” Ellis told the Wall Street Journal.