Giuliani, other Trump lawyers to skip meeting with Michigan lawmakers after COVID-19 exposure: report

Rudy Giuliani and other members of President Trump’s personal legal team will reportedly not be at a meeting Friday with two Michigan lawmakers due to an exposure to COVID-19, two sources familiar with the matter told Axios. 

Axios’s Jonathan Swan reported that on a Trump campaign call Friday morning with Eric Herschmann, a lawyer on the White House staff, Herschmann said the legal team would not be present at the meeting later that day. 

According to the sources who spoke to Axios, one participant said that Andrew Giuliani, a White House staffer and son of Rudy Giuliani, had tested positive for the virus, while another said that the older Giuliani should not attend the meeting later in the day due to likely exposure to his son. 

The sources added that Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis said if Giuliani had been exposed, the entire legal team had likely been, as well. 

One of the sources told Axios that the legal team has been meeting for days in a conference room at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., and that Andrew Giuliani had been around all of them.

Andrew Giuliani confirmed on Twitter on Friday that he had contracted the virus, adding that he was “experiencing mild symptoms, and am following all appropriate protocols, including being in quarantine and conducting contact tracing.” 

Axios added that in place of members of the Giuliani legal team, another campaign attorney would attend Friday’s meeting to brief Trump on the status of the campaign’s multistate legal battles challenging the results of the presidential election, which all major news outlets projected for President-elect Joe Biden nearly two weeks ago. 

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. 

The White House referred The Hill to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s briefing on Friday, during which she confirmed that “Trump will meet with officials from the Michigan state legislature at the White House.” 

At the press briefing, the first held by McEnany in six weeks, the press secretary added that Friday’s scheduled event “is not an advocacy meeting,” claiming “there will be no one from the campaign there.”

“He routinely meets with lawmakers from all across the country,” she added, although she declined to provide any further details on the nature of the planned meeting. 

Trump’s legal team has sought to challenge the results of the race in Michigan, where Biden won by more than 140,000 votes. 

The president reached out on Tuesday night to officials in Wayne County, Mich., who had sought to block the certification of votes there. Wayne County, a Democratic stronghold, is home to Detroit and voted overwhelmingly for Biden.

Trump then invited Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and state House Speaker Lee Chatfield to the White House, raising concerns among lawmakers and watchdogs who view these actions as attempts by Trump to use his office to undermine the results of the election.