Former President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before departure from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Aug. 24.Alex Brandon/The Associated Press
Donald Trump has been booked in Georgia on his fourth indictment this year, accused of racketeering in his sweeping plot to overturn the result of the 2020 election. The former president arrived at the Fulton County Jail, a crumbling and violent facility in an Atlanta industrial park, around 7:40 p.m. Thursday after flying in from his New Jersey estate on a private plane.
Unlike Mr. Trump’s three previous arrests, the proceedings included getting his mug shot taken and posting US$200,000 bail. Despite his much-flaunted personal fortune, the former president used the services of a bail bondsman to secure the amount, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. He was not immediately arraigned but is expected to plead not guilty at a Sept. 5 hearing.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is shown in a police booking mug shot.samiyah/The Associated Press
In his mug shot, which the local sheriff’s office promptly released publicly, a red-eyed Mr. Trump fixes the camera with his head tilted forward and a scowl on his face.
Mr. Trump arrived during prime time television hours and riding in a large motorcade whose progress was breathlessly tracked by news helicopters. His campaign said it would use the mugshot on its T-shirts and other merchandise as Mr. Trump seeks to win back the White House by portraying himself as the innocent victim of a Machiavellian justice system.
Speaking with reporters on the airport tarmac after his release, Mr. Trump repeated his lies that his 2020 defeat had been “rigged.” He described the arrest as “a travesty of justice” and insisted “I did nothing wrong.”
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As a condition of Mr. Trump’s bail, Judge Scott McAfee ordered him not to threaten witnesses, co-defendants or “the community,” including via “posts on social media.” The former president has repeatedly attacked judicial officials, including labelling Atlanta’s district attorney, Fani Willis, a “LOWLIFE” on his Truth Social platform mere hours before turning himself in.
Ms. Willis asked court on Thursday to schedule the trial start date for Oct. 23, less than two months from now. Such a tight timeline is unlikely to hold, given the complexity of the case and expected pretrial motions. Still, it signals her aim to prosecute Mr. Trump’s case before the November, 2024, presidential election, raising the likelihood he will be fighting to stay out of prison at the same time as he is campaigning for office.
Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants face a combined total of 41 charges, including 13 directly against Mr. Trump. Ms. Willis had given them all until Friday at noon to surrender. By late Thursday, nearly all had, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, and lawyers Jenna Ellis and John Eastman. The District Attorney is seeking to try all 19 people together.
The former president faces 91 charges across all of his indictments. In addition to the Georgia case, he has also been charged in two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, one related to the election and another to keeping nuclear secrets and other classified documents after leaving office, and a New York state case over a hush-money payment to a porn star.
The prosecution in Atlanta, however, differs in several key respects. For one, Mr. Trump will not be able to pardon himself of the state-level charges if he returns to the presidency. For another, it is likely to be televised live, ensuring wall-to-wall coverage.
Ms. Willis’s indictment is also the most sprawling of the four. At its centre is a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charge, which alleges that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants constituted a criminal enterprise. This allows the District Attorney to tie all of their alleged insurrectionary actions into the case.
After the November, 2020, vote, Mr. Trump put pressure on Republican officials and legislators in seven swing states, the federal Department of Justice and then-vice-president Mike Pence to help him reverse the loss of his re-election bid. Central to the effort was a plan to have Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral college members thrown out in the states and replaced with fake electors who would instead back Mr. Trump.
In one famous telephone call, Mr. Trump tried to cajole Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough Republican votes to overcome Mr. Biden’s victory in the state.
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When Mr. Raffensperger and others refused to go along with the plan, Mr. Trump summoned his supporters to Washington and exhorted them to descend on the Capitol. The Jan. 6, 2021 riot shut down Congress for several hours as it met to certify Mr. Biden’s victory.
The former president also shook up his Georgia legal team in the hours before the arrest. He put Steven Sadow, an Atlanta criminal defence lawyer with experience handling RICO cases, at its head, in a sign of the seriousness of the charges.
The Fulton County Jail is notoriously decrepit and currently under federal investigation after the deaths of several inmates. On one occasion last year, the county sheriff’s office confiscated nearly 100 homemade knives from inmates in the facility, including some fashioned from pieces of the building’s walls.
Despite his legal troubles, Mr. Trump has a commanding lead in polling for the Republican presidential nomination and is roughly even with Mr. Biden in a prospective rematch. Much of the coming weeks is likely to be spent in wrangling over timelines for the trials. Mr. Trump’s lawyers are trying to push back all of the cases until well after the election, while prosecutors want to move forward far sooner.
Adrian Morrow