President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is being treated in hospital.
The president wrote in a tweet: “Get better soon Rudy, we will carry on!”
Mr Giuliani, who has led the Trump campaign’s legal challenges to the election results, is the latest person close to the president to be infected.
The president and his team have been criticised for shunning safety guidance. Mr Trump was ill in October.
Mr Giuliani, 76, was admitted to the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC on Sunday, according to US media reports.
Following news of Mr Giuliani’s diagnosis, the Arizona legislature announced sudden plans to shut down for one week. Several Republican lawmakers in the state had spent hours with the former New York mayor last week discussing election results.
In a tweet, Mr Giuliani thanked well-wishers for their messages, and said he was “recovering quickly”.
His son, Andrew Giuliani, who works at the White House and tested positive for the virus last month, tweeted that his father was “resting, getting great care and feeling well”.
It is not clear if Mr Giuliani is experiencing symptoms or when he caught the virus.
Nearly 14.6 million people have been infected with Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 281,234 people have died – the highest figures of any country in the world.
On Sunday, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator, criticised the Trump administration for flouting guidelines and peddling “myths” about the pandemic.
“I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don’t work, parroting back that we should work towards herd immunity,” Dr Birx told NBC.
“This is the worst event that this country will face,” she said
WHO IS GIULIANI?
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani born May 28, 1944) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He served as United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989.
In April 2018, Giuliani joined President Donald Trump‘s personal legal team. His activities as Trump’s attorney have drawn renewed media scrutiny, including allegations that he is engaged in corruption and profiteering. In late 2019, Giuliani was reportedly under federal investigation for violating lobbying laws, and possibly several other charges, as a central figure in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which resulted in Trump’s impeachment.
Following the 2020 election, he represented Trump in many lawsuits attempting to overturn the election results, making false and debunked allegations about rigged voting machines, polling place fraud, and an international Communist conspiracy.
