Former US president Donald Trump turned himself in at a Georgia jail on Thursday to face racketeering and conspiracy prices and sure a historic mugshot.
Trump, who’s accused of colluding with 18 co-defendants to attempt to overturn the 2020 election consequence within the southern state, arrived at Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail to be booked and launched on bond.
The 77-year-old billionaire has been criminally indicted 4 instances since April, setting the stage for a 12 months of unprecedented drama as he tries to juggle a number of courtroom appearances and one other White House marketing campaign.
In posts on his Truth Social platform shortly earlier than leaving his New Jersey golf membership for the flight to Atlanta, Trump mentioned he was being arrested for “having the audacity to challenge a RIGGED & STOLLEN (sic) ELECTION.”
“This is yet another SAD DAY IN AMERICA!” he added.
Trump was in a position to dodge having a mugshot taken throughout his earlier arrests this 12 months: in New York on prices of paying hush cash to a porn star, in Florida for mishandling prime secret authorities paperwork, and in Washington on prices of conspiring to upend his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
But Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat mentioned commonplace process in Georgia is to take a defendant’s {photograph} earlier than they’re launched on bond — set at $200,000 in Trump’s case.
The arrest comes in the future after Trump spurned a televised debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that includes eight of his rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination — all of whom lag properly behind him within the polls.
He nonetheless stole the highlight, although, with all however two of the candidates saying they’d help him because the celebration’s nominee even when he have been a convicted felon.
During a pre-recorded interview with former Fox News discuss present host Tucker Carlson — which aired on social media concurrently the talk — Trump dismissed the legal circumstances filed in opposition to him as “nonsense.”
Trump mentioned the Justice Department had been “weaponized” beneath Biden to hamstring his White House bid.
Court dates in election race
A good safety perimeter was arrange for Trump’s reserving on the Fulton County Jail, which is beneath investigation for a slew of inmate deaths and deplorable situations.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district lawyer who filed the sweeping racketeering case, had set a deadline of midday (1600 GMT) on Friday for Trump and the opposite 18 defendants to give up.
Trump and 11 others have turned themselves in to date.
Former White House chief of workers Mark Meadows surrendered on Thursday and was launched on $100,000 bond.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who served as Trump’s private lawyer when he was within the White House and vigorously pushed the false claims that Trump had received the 2020 election, was booked and launched on Wednesday.
John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who’s accused of drawing up a scheme to submit a false slate of Trump electors to Congress from Georgia as an alternative of the respectable Biden ones, has additionally been booked and launched.
A couple of dozen supporters of the previous Republican president gathered outdoors the jail, together with Sharon Anderson who spent the evening in her automobile.
“I think this is a political persecution and now that’s turned into a political prosecution,” Anderson advised AFP.
Trump is the primary US president in historical past to face legal prices.
His numerous trials, in the event that they happen subsequent 12 months, could coincide with the Republican presidential major season, which begins in January, and the marketing campaign for the November 2024 White House election.
Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a January 2024 begin date for Trump’s trial on prices of conspiring to overturn the final election with a lie-fueled marketing campaign that culminated within the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.
Trump’s attorneys have countered with a prompt begin date properly after the election — April 2026.
Willis, the Georgia district lawyer, initially proposed that the racketeering case start in March subsequent 12 months, the identical month Trump is scheduled to go on trial in New York on prices of paying hush cash to porn star Stormy Daniels.
On Thursday, after one of many defendants requested for a speedy trial, she proposed that it start for all 19 in October of this 12 months, a transfer met with an instantaneous objection from Trump’s attorneys.
The Florida case, through which Trump is accused of taking secret authorities paperwork as he left the White House and refusing to return them, is scheduled to start in May. —Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
