Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani tests positive for Covid-19
President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for COVID-19, Trump said on Sunday, after the former New York mayor’s long-term efforts to persuade Republican lawmakers to help reverse the president’s election defeat.
The 76-year-old Giuliani is the latest in a long line of people near the White House, including Trump himself, ill in a pandemic that has killed more than 280,000 Americans.
“@RudyGiuliani, by far the greatest mayor in NYC history, and who has worked tirelessly to expose the most corrupt election (by far!) In U.S. history, has tested positive for the Chinese virus,” Trump said, using a term for Covid-19 which has counteracted.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two sources told Reuters that Giuliani was at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, on Sunday. One of the sources said that he had not been accepted yet. The hospital did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation.
Giuliani has been at the forefront of Trump’s fluttering effort to overturn his November 3 election loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden through a flood of trials. Both Trump and Giuliani have repeatedly claimed, contrary to evidence, that the result was appalled by widespread fraud.
State and federal officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence of fraud on any significant scale.
Giuliani visited Georgia on Thursday, urging state lawmakers to intervene to overturn Biden’s victory in the state, after making similar ground in Michigan on Wednesday and Arizona on Monday.
Trump and many of his close associates have ignored public health officials’ advice to wear masks and avoid crowds to stop the transmission of the respiratory disease, which has erupted to record levels in the United States as winter approaches.
Giuliani, who developed an international profile as “Mayor of America” for his leadership following the September 11, 2001 attacks, has faced growing legal problems during the Trump administration.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have investigated Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine, and two employees, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, have been accused of violating campaign funding.
Giuliani has not been prosecuted and has denied wrongdoing. The couple and Fruman have not pleaded guilty.
(REUTERS)
