Lawmakers who met with Giuliani scramble after COVID news

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was “doing very well” after being hospitalized with the coronavirus as lawmakers in battleground states that Giuliani visited last week scrambled to make sure they did not contract the virus.

The 76-year-old former New York mayor, hospitalized in Washington, had traveled extensively to battleground states to press Trump’s quixotic effort to get legislators to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden and subvert the November vote. On numerous occasions, Giuliani met with officials for hours at a time without wearing a mask, including hearings last week with state lawmakers in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.

Fallout from Giuliani’s diagnosis continued Monday as the Michigan House announced it had canceled its voting session scheduled for Tuesday. Giuliani spoke for hours last week before a Republican-led committee in Lansing investigating alleged election irregularities. Michigan’s move came after the Arizona legislature announced Sunday that it would close for a week out of an abundance of caution “for recent cases and concerns relating to COVID-19.”

“Multiple representatives have requested time to receive results from recent COVID-19 tests before returning to session, out of an abundance of caution,” Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, a Republican who met with Giuliani before the hearing, said in a statement. “The CDC guidelines would not consider them close contacts with anyone, even if Mayor Giuliani had been positive, but they want to go above and beyond in the interest of public safety. With the recent spike in COVID cases nationwide, this makes sense.”

The health department in Ingham County, where Lansing is located, said several people who attended the Michigan committee meeting with Giuliani on Wednesday must quarantine at least through Saturday. Health officer Linda Vail said she consulted with the state health department, which agrees that “it is extremely likely that Giuliani was contagious during his testimony.”

In Georgia, state Sen. William Ligon Jr., chairman of the subcommittee Giuliani testified before, urged those who had come in close contact with Giuliani “to take every precaution and follow all requisite guidelines to ensure their health and safety.” Giuliani on Thursday attended a hearing at the Georgia Capitol, where he went without a mask for several hours.