President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and Attorney General William Barr are among several powerful Washington officials who met last week with an Australian government minister who has since tested positive for coronavirus, according to several news reports.
Peter Dutton, who is Australia’s minister for Home Affairs, said he tested positive in the days after the March 5 meeting in Washington and has been in isolation at a hospital since.
“This morning I woke up with a temperature and sore throat,” Dutton said in a statement on Twitter on Friday morning.
Dutton said the local health department required him to check into the hospital.
“I feel fine and will provide an update in due course,” he said.
A day after the March 5 meeting, Dutton posted a photo on Twitter showing him alongside Ivanka Trump, Barr, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, plus several other world diplomats from Canada, Britain and New Zealand.
Sen. Lindsey Graham also reportedly met with Dutton that day, and his office announced that he would be self-quarantining.
"Senator Graham continues to work from home while under self-quarantine awaiting the results of a coronavirus test," his office said, according to NBC News.
White House officials, including representatives for Ivanka Trump, have not responded to questions about whether they intend to be tested or self-quarantine, according to The Associated Press.
Barr stayed home from work Friday but said he “felt great and wasn’t showing any symptoms,” according to the AP, citing his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec, who said the CDC did not recommend testing now for the nation’s top law enforcement official.
The White House said Thursday it was aware the communications chief for Brazil’s president who visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last weekend also tested positive for COVID-19.
A photo was taken of the president, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, and Brazil’s President Fábio Wajngarten, showing them shoulder-to-shoulder, the AP reported.
Graham’s office also released a statement Thursday saying that “Senator Graham was at Mar-a-Lago last weekend.”
Scott has since said he was isolating himself. Trump, however, said he was not worried.
“We had dinner in Florida at Mar-a-Lago with the entire delegation,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “But we did nothing very unusual. We sat next to each other for a period of time.” Asked whether he should be tested, Trump replied, “I am not concerned.” Later Friday, the president said he was in the process of setting up a test.
The White House maintains that officials are following CDC guidelines.
— Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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