Rudy Giuliani: who is Donald Trump’s lawyer and former New York City mayor as he is diagnosed with Covid

Rudy Giuliani was ridiculed on social media after suffering from an apparent hair dye mishap (Shutterstock)

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has tested positive for coronavirus.

The former New York City mayor is the latest person within President Trump’s close circle to catch the virus, with Trump announcing the news via Twitter on 6 December.

Mr Giuliani, 76, is being treated in hospital but has said he is “feeling good” and “recovering quickly”.

He is currently leading Trump’s efforts to legally challenge the result of the 2020 US presidential election.

So, who is Rudy Giuliani - and why has he recently been surrounded by controversy?

Here’s everything you need to know about one of President Trump’s fiercest allies.

Who is Rudy Giuliani?

Despite controversial behaviour during his time as Trump’s personal lawyer, Mr Guiliani hasn’t always been as divisive a figure.

Prior to his role as mayor of New York City, he was a respected attorney, practising privately from 1977 to 1981 before joining the Justice Department as associate attorney general in 1981.

He was then appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of New York two years later.

Mr Giuliani ran for mayor in 1989, a failed election attempt.

Yet, he became mayor a few years later in 1994 as the first Republican candidate in two decades.

While in the post, he reformed the city’s finances and was tough on law and order - a policy that Republicans admire Donald Trump for.

However, Mr Giuliani was accused of racism and supporting police brutality during his second term as mayor.

When 9/11 happened, he was still in charge of the city and due to his calm and strong leadership, his condemnation of the attacks, his transparent updates and his attempt to protect the Muslim community in the aftermath, he became known as “America’s Mayor”.

For his response and exemplary leadership, Mr Giuliani was named Time Person of the Year in 2001.

Among his accolades, he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his role in the response to the September 11 attacks.

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What has been Rudy Giuliani’s role in US politics?

Rudy Giuliani ran for the Republican candidacy ahead of the 2008 US election, before losing to John McCain.

After becoming one of the most prominent supporters of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Mr Giuliani became unofficial adviser on cybersecurity for the White House.

He then joined the president’s legal team two years later, during the time when a special counsel investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In September 2019, Giuliani came under intense scrutiny after a whistleblower alleged that he had engaged in efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden.

Mr Trump was impeached later that year, but was ultimately acquitted in February 2020.

What was his role in the 2020 US election?

Donald Trump then put Mr Giuliani in charge of his 2020 campaign’s post-election legal challenges after he lost the presidential race to former Vice President, Joe Biden.

Throughout the election and during the aftermath, Mr Giuliani has spoken about “election fraud”, leading the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn the result.

Among other baseless claims, Mr Giuliani alleged that voters in Democratic areas were given more chances to correct mistakes on their postal ballots than elsewhere in the country.

President Trump’s legal team also claims that more than 680,000 postal ballots in Pennsylvania were counted without proper scrutiny from poll watchers.

Mr Giuliani, along with Trump’s senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis, pledged to take Trump’s case in Pennsylvania to the US Supreme Court when it was rejected by a federal appeals court.

And despite Joe Biden’s wins in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona, Mr Giuliani filed several lawsuits contesting the results, citing problems with voting machines, ballot processing and “unlawfully” cast votes.

Some of these lawsuits have now been dropped.

Why has Rudy Giuliani been ridiculed?

Rudy Giuliani has been involved in a series of recent events which have led to him being widely ridiculed.

In October, Mr Giuliani was forced to deny misconduct following the release of embarrassing footage in the latest Sacha Baron Cohen project.

In Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Mr Giuliani can be seen reaching down his trousers during a secretly recorded scene with an actress who plays the titular character’s daughter.

He said that he had been tucking in his shirt after removing microphone wires.

Then, the day the presidential election was called for Biden, Mr Giuliani was made fun of after holding a press conference at a landscaping firm on behalf of President Trump.

The firm, named Four Seasons Total Landscaping, was situated next to an adult book store and a crematorium, with many suggesting that the Trump campaign intended to book Philadelphia’s luxury Four Seasons Hotel.

And Mr Giuliani’s most recent gaffe came on 19 November, after his claims of voter fraud were rejected in a Pennsylvania court, Mr Giuliani suffered another embarrassing press conference when streaks of what appeared to be black hair dye ran down his face in front of cameras.