By Jarrett Renshaw
(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was recently hospitalized with COVID-19, will attend a virtual hearing this week with Georgia lawmakers over Trump’s flagging effort to overturn his election loss, a source said on Tuesday.
Trump announced Sunday that Giuliani tested positive for COVID-19, and the 76-year-old former New York City mayor wrote on Twitter the same day that he was recovering and “feeling good.”
Since then, Giuliani has participated in several conference calls to discuss Trump’s legal strategy and “is still fully engaged,” the source familiar with Giuliani’s plans said.
Trump’s legal effort, which Giuliani is spearheading, has yet to convince any court on the president’s claim that widespread fraud cost him the election. Judges have rejected cases in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin.
State and federal officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence of fraud on any significant scale.
In Georgia, state lawmakers are due to hold a virtual meeting on Thursday to discuss election issues, following a hearing last week in which Giuliani urged the state’s lawmakers to intervene to overturn Biden’s victory in the state. Giuliani made similar pleas last week in Michigan and Arizona.
After news broke on Sunday of Giuliani’s test, the Arizona state legislature said it would close both chambers this week out of caution “for recent cases and concerns relating to COVID-19.” Giuliani met with about a dozen Republican lawmakers there last week.
The president’s legal team said Sunday evening that Giuliani had tested negative just before his trip to the three states.
On Tuesday a source familiar with the situation said Jenna Ellis, an attorney who has been working side-by-side with Giuliani in Trump’s legal challenges to the results of the election, had contracted the coronavirus.
(Reporting by Jarret Renshaw in Philadelphia, writing by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Chris Reese)
