'I did nothing wrong': Donald Trump arrested over Georgia 2020 ...
Atlanta, Georgia: Donald Trump has become the first former US president to have his mugshot taken as he turned himself in to face criminal charges at a Georgia jail plagued by violence, squalor and overcrowding.
In yet another extraordinary day in presidential history, the 77-year-old Republican’s private plane touched down in Atlanta shortly after 7pm on Thursday (local time), where Trump surrendered over allegations that he was part of an alleged “criminal enterprise” designed to subvert the 2020 election results in that state.
This booking photo shows former President Donald Trump at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. Credit: AP
The charges - which the former president denies - represent the fourth criminal case that Trump has faced in about five months.
However, in all the other cases, Trump was arraigned in court: firstly in New York over alleged hush money payments; then in Miami over allegedly mishandling classified documents; followed by Washington DC over his role in trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
In this matter, Trump was forced to surrender in the Fulton County Jail, an overcrowded detention centre about 20 minutes drive from downtown Atlanta that is so notorious it is now under investigation by the federal justice department.
Inside the facility, Trump was processed, fingerprinted and had his mugshot taken for the first time - something that campaign insiders were considering using to solicit donations for the former president’s campaign to return to the White House. In another first for a US president, he was also given an inmate number.
“This is the photo that will win the 2024 presidential election,” Georgia Congresswoman and Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted after the Fulton County sherriff’s office released the photo of the former president.
The entire process lasted for about 20 minutes before Trump’s motorcade left the jail to return to the Atlanta airport and then on to Trump’s Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.
Before taking off, he told reporters that it was a sad day for America and a “travesty of justice”.
“I did nothing wrong and everybody knows that,” he said. “They’re trying to interfere with an election. There’s never been anything like it in our country before. This is their way of campaigning.”
Donald Trump’s motorcade arrives at Fulton County Jail.Credit: Reuters
Earlier, in an interview with axed Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, which was designed to upstage the first Republican debate, the former president described the multiple indictments against him as “all trivia, all nonsense”.
“Bullshit, it’s all bullshit,” he said.
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Trump’s surrender comes after several of his 18 alleged co-conspirators also turned themselves in, including key members of his former legal team: Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was the latest to surrender on Thursday for his alleged role in helping Trump pressure Georgia officials to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory. The remaining co-defendants have until midday on Friday to do the same.
Outside the jail ahead of his arrest, dozens of supporters began gathering around the entrance of the facility awaiting his arrival. One man was seated opposite the main entrance of the jail with a handmade sign saying “Lock Biden Up”; another carried a sign saying “Trump Won - Save America.”
Others, such as Virginia Webb, from north-east Georgia, took a different view.
“It was almost a two-hour trip to come here, but I know how important it is,” she told this masthead, holding a sign saying ‘Trump, go directly to jail.’
“Trump lost this election, but he tried to rig it, so he would get free votes here in Georgia.”
“Thankfully we have elected officials - including Republican elected officials who are not afraid to stand up and do the right thing for Georgia officials.”
Virginia Webb of North Georgia outside the Fulton County Jail.Credit: Farrah Tomazin
Trump’s latest surrender, which was televised live on US cable networks, has also thrown the spotlight on the parlous state of the facility where he was to be booked.
Conditions at the Fulton County Jail are so bad that the federal justice department last month launched an investigation into “credible allegations that an incarcerated person died covered in insects and filth”.
The department also raised concerns that the jail was “structurally unsafe, that prevalent violence has resulted in serious injuries and homicides, and that officers are being prosecuted for using excessive force.”
The jail is a few kilometres from the Fulton County Courthouse where Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators were indicted by an Atlanta grand jury this month after a 2 ½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
The charges cover claims that Trump and his allies were part of a racketeering scheme that included setting up phony electors to produce fake votes, making false representations to the courts, tampering with electronic voting machines, misusing the power of the Justice Department and pressuring state and federal officials not to certify Biden’s win.
The most well-known part of the alleged scheme involves the now-infamous phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, urging him to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to put him ahead of Biden.
But 13 charges against Trump in Georgia are particularly troubling for the former president because he won’t have the power to pardon himself, should he be re-elected, as he otherwise could in a federal conviction. The only option he would have would be to apply to Georgia’s State Board of Pardons and Paroles – and only after five years after serving his sentence.
The charges are also based on Georgia’s expansive Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations law – otherwise known as RICO – which is used to target mobsters involved in organised crime, such as money laundering, bribery, and drug trafficking. RICO carries a penalty of between five and 20 years in prison.
Willis has suggested she is ready to go to trial immediately and has nominated October 23 as the start date for all 19 defendants in the case.
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