Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis contracts coronavirus, source says
Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who has been leading the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to dispute the results of the 2020 presidential election, has contracted the coronavirus, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNN.
The source said White House aides have been informed that she has contracted the virus, but that Ellis has not been forthright with White House officials about it.
Axios first reported that Ellis had tested positive.
Ellis attended a Christmas party designated for senior staff on Friday, a senior official told CNN. She regularly does not wear a mask when she is at the White House.
Ellis adds to the growing list of individuals in President Donald Trump’s orbit testing positive for coronavirus in recent months. Most recently, Rudy Giuliani, another Trump lawyer working on baseless efforts to challenge the election results, was admitted to the hospital this weekend after testing positive for Covid-19.
Giuliani and Ellis have frequently appeared maskless while crisscrossing the country in recent weeks to advance Trump’s baseless election fraud claims.
Giuliani and Ellis have also both eschewed US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quarantine guidelines after coming into close contact and campaign adviser Boris Epshteyn, who tested positive in late November.
The day Epshteyn announced he had tested positive — less than a week after Giuliani and Ellis attended a news conference with him — the pair of lawyers traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where they addressed a group of Republican state lawmakers in a crowded hotel ballroom.
The new case from someone close to the President comes amid a record number of hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients and a surge in deaths in the US.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were guests at the same White House holiday party on Friday that Ellis attended, a White House official said.
CNN has reached out to Ivanka Trump’s spokesperson to inquire if she and Kushner had contact with Ellis and whether they will quarantine.
There are some safety protocols in place for the events, but most, if not all, of the holiday parties are still flouting CDC guidelines for size restrictions, as well as Washington, DC, restrictions for indoor gatherings, which is currently capped at 10 people.
Trump’s surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, previously warned against all Americans — even those at the White House — from participating in large holiday gatherings because they might become coronavirus superspreader events.
But during one holiday party at the White House in recent weeks, despite officials saying there would be safety protocols, publicly accessible social media images posted by attendees indicated that there was little social distancing and many guests were not wearing masks.
