ATLANTA (CN) — Two of Donald Trump's allies turned themselves in to authorities at the Fulton County Jail on Tuesday, and more than half a dozen others were granted bond deals, following their indictment last week alongside the former president.
Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall was the first to surrender, followed by Trump's campaign attorney John Eastman, after both of their attorneys and Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee signed consent bond orders on Monday.
Eastman is out on a $100,000 bond. His charges stem from his prominent involvement in developing pressure tactics that would force Pence to reject the official Democratic electors in Georgia and other swing states in favor of “alternate” Trump electors. He also testified remotely before the Georgia Legislature, alongside co-defendant and fellow attorney Rudy Giuliani, that there was evidence of widespread election fraud.
"I am here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought," Eastman said in a statement.
“My legal team and I will vigorously contest every count of the indictment in which I am named, and also every count in which others are named, for which my knowledge of the relevant facts, law, and constitutional provisions may prove helpful. I am confident that, when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated."
Eastman faces nine total charges including violating racketeering laws, conspiracy to impersonate a public officer and filing false documents.
Hall was released on a $10,000 bond and faces seven charges, including violating state racketeering laws and conspiracy to defraud the state and commit election fraud. His role in the alleged criminal enterprise centers on his presence at the Coffee County elections office in rural Georgia on Jan. 7, 2021, where Atlanta tech company SullivanStrickler was given unauthorized access to voting equipment and copied confidential election data.
Judge McAfee also signed off on bond agreements for more than half a dozen other co-defendants on Tuesday.
David Shafer, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, was granted a $75,000 bond. He faces eight charges that revolve around his alleged oversight of a December 2020 meeting at the state capital of 16 GOP electors who signed documents falsely certifying a win for Trump in the 2020 election.
The amount was $10,000 for Shawn Still, a Republican state senator who was the finance chairman of the state GOP in 2020. Still allegedly helped to organize the Trump elector meeting and even served as one of the "fake" electors, purporting to represent the electoral votes from Georgia.
In a court filing that he ultimately withdrew after three weeks, Still even sued to decertify all of Georgia’s presidential election results based on allegations of problems with voting equipment in South Georgia’s Coffee County. He faces seven charges in the sprawling racketeering indictment that was secured by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last week after presenting her case to a grand jury.
Cathy Latham, the former chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party, was granted a $75,000 bond. One of the 16 Republican electors who signed certificates falsely claiming Trump won in Georgia, she faces 11 charges in the indictment.
She was also a notable part in the unauthorized copying of confidential election data in January 2021 at the Coffee County election office, where she allegedly greeted the computer forensics team that copied the election files in an apparent attempt to prove fraud.
Jenna Ellis, an attorney hired by the Trump campaign, was granted a higher bond at $100,000. Her charges stem from echoing falsehoods about Georgia’s elections at the Georgia legislative hearing and to state officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Michigan alongside Giuliani.
Mike Roman, a former Trump campaign official, was the fifth defendant to be granted bond on Tuesday at $50,000. Roman served as the campaign’s director of election day operations and allegedly helped organize slates of phony Trump electors in Georgia and other battleground states.
Robert Cheeley, an attorney from Alpharetta, Georgia who faces 10 charges for aiding in the presentation of the purported surveillance videos to Georgia lawmakers with Giuliani, was granted a $50,000 bond.
The judge granted a $75,000 bond for Stephen Lee, a pastor and police chaplain from Illinois who prosecutors say tried to intimidate Fulton County poll worker Ruby Freeman into a false admission of committing election fraud.
Also on Tuesday, Willis rejected a request from attorneys representing former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to delay his surrender to the jail until after a hearing is held on whether his case will be moved to federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones, a Barack Obama appointee, has scheduled a hearing on Aug. 28, for Meadow’s motion filed last week that claims his case should be transferred because the alleged actions he took were during his time as a government official and should be granted immunity from prosecution.
On Monday, indicted attorneys Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro were granted bond packages. They had yet to surrender on Tuesday afternoon.
The bond consent orders for each of those defendants forbids them from intimidating other co-defendants or witnesses, or contacting them about the case other than through counsel. They are required to report for pre-trial supervision every 30 days, either by phone or by court appearance as directed, and cannot violate any other laws.
The former president faces 13 charges accusing him of participating in “a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities” while trying to change the election results in Georgia and other states that they knew Trump had lost.
After Trump was granted a $200,000 bond on Monday, he said on his Truth Social page that he plans to surrender for booking on Thursday, a day before the noon deadline on Aug. 25 that he and the other 18 total defendants were given by Willis. In the same post, Trump said he was going to "be arrested by a radical left district attorney" and accused her of campaigning off of "this witch hunt."
Trump has denounced any wrongdoing and has used the indictment, and the three others he currently faces, as political assets to his reelection campaign to draw sympathy from his devout supporters as being a victim of what he claims to be a politically motivated justice system.
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