December 7 political news briefs

Here are today’s political news briefs.

President Trump announced last night that his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani tested positive for Covid-19. News reports said he is hospitalized in the D.C. and he tweeted that he is getting great care and is feeling good.

Giuliani has been very busy the past two weeks crisscrossing the country to file lawsuits and testify before state legislatures to challenge Trump’s loss in the 2020 election. Now he will have to rest and recover. It is possible he will meet with Georgia lawmakers remotely on Thursday. He was not wearing a mask in many of his travels, so hundreds of people around him would probably have to get tested.

Today a federal judge dismissed an election lawsuit in Georgia that wanted Joe Biden’s victory to be decertified. The lawsuit was from Trump ally Sidney Powell and it wanted mail-in ballots to be thrown out. Judge Timothy C. Batten said he wouldn’t reverse the decision of Georgia’s voters, which has been reaffirmed by two recounts.

Today the Georgia Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said they would re-certify the election results in the state after a third recount showed Biden the winner.

In Michigan, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from Sidney Powell that alleged Dominion voting machines were secretly manipulated to favor Biden. Judge Linda Parker said the lawsuit was filed too late and did not have evidence and that the “ship has sailed.” A lawyer with Powell’s team said they would appeal.

President-elect Joe Biden announced he is picking Xavier Becerra, who is the California Attorney General, to become his secretary for Health and Human Services. Becerra has consistently sued the Trump administration, suing them over 100 times. He will now lead the federal staff who runs the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare program.

He also announced Rochelle Walensky would become the CDC director. She is an infectious-disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard professor. She has worked extensively on HIV/AIDS treatments.

There are still 11 positions in Biden’s cabinet that have not yet been announced — such as the Attorney General or the secretaries of Defense, Labor, or Education.

On Friday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully restore the DACA program for undocumented immigrants who were brought in the U.S. as children. The program grants permits for those immigrants to live and work in the U.S. The program has been closed by the Trump administration to new applicants since 2017, but now it must be reopened.

That’s all the political news briefs for today.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1335679426516881409

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1335771824639107075

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ship-sailed-courts-reject-cases-pro-trump-lawyer/story?id=74585342

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/07/joe-biden-trump-transition-live-updates/#link-AHLBKM5XB5CWNIRA6DWYT35ANU

https://www.axios.com/biden-cabinet-tracker-a1e57167-9a79-4922-8723-6bb93ddee971.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/judge-orders-daca-restored-immigration-program/