ATLANTA (CN) — Six allies of former President Donald Trump turned themselves in to authorities Wednesday at the Fulton County Jail after being granted bond deals that range from five to six digits based on the severity of their alleged crimes.
Rudy Giuliani surrendered just minutes after his attorneys left a late-afternoon meeting with Fulton Superior Judge McAfee where they agreed on a $150,000 bond. The former mayor of New York City told reporters outside of the jail that the “allegations are completely false.”
Earlier Wednesday, as he left his home in New York, Giuliani told members of the press that he is “fighting for justice” and has been since he first began representing Trump.
“I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I am defending the rights of all Americans, as I did so many times as a United States attorney,” Giuliani said on his way to Atlanta.
Giuliani is among the most prominent of the defendants named after Trump himself, as both face 13 total charges in the indictment. The former personal attorney to the president played an integral role in the alleged criminal "enterprise" by purporting surveillance footage of ballots being tabulated in Atlanta, falsely claiming election workers were pulling out "suitcases" of ballots.
Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell also turned herself in Wednesday afternoon after being granted a $100,000 bond earlier in the day by Judge McAfee. Powell faces seven charges, largely for her alleged coordination of obtaining the sensitive election data from the Coffee County voting equipment and paying Atlanta tech company SullivanStrickler to do so. She has publicly voiced a series of baseless election fraud conspiracy theories, one of which claims that voting machines were rigged for Biden.
On Wednesday morning, Atlanta attorney Ray Smith and Trump's campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro were both booked at the jail. Smith was released on a $50,000 bond, while Chesebro was released on a $100,000 bond at 10:30 a.m., just two hours after they were booked, according to online jail records.
Smith, a lawyer at the firm Smith & Liss, faces 12 charges in the sweeping indictment unsealed last week against Trump and 18 others, who each played a part in what prosecutors say was a multistate racketeering plot to overturn Trump's defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The indictment says Smith advised alternate GOP electors in a Dec. 14, 2020, meeting at the Georgia Capitol to cast votes for Trump and sign documents falsely claiming Trump won the election. Smith also sent a letter to state officials that spread concerns of voter fraud and filed one of the Trump campaign's election challenges in state court. The Trump campaign filed at least 63 lawsuits in multiple states contesting election processes, vote counting and the vote-certification process. Nearly every case has been dismissed or dropped due to lack of evidence.
Chesebro turned himself in meanwhile on seven charges for his role in facilitating the plot to create the slate of “alternate” Republican electors both in Georgia, among other states. In his Dec. 6, 2020, memorandum outlining the plan to “prevent Biden from amassing 270 electoral votes” — even though Biden had legitimately won more than that number — Chesebro even describes his legal theory as “bold” and “controversial."
David Shafer, who chaired the Georgia Republican Party in the last presidential election, and Cathy Latham, former chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party, both surrendered around 2:30 a.m., according to jail records. Both were released on bonds set this week at $75,000. Shortly after, Shafer posted his booking mug shot on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, with the hashtag #NewProfilePicture.
Shafer faces eight charges related to his role in organizing the meeting of the fake Republican electors. He stepped down from his roles as the state party's chairman in June.
Latham, who was one of the 16 Republican electors who signed certificates falsely claiming Trump won in Georgia, faces 11 charges in the indictment. She was also a prominent part in the unauthorized copying of confidential election data in January 2021 at the Coffee County election office in south Georgia — an incident that became a vital piece of the investigation. Latham 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, surrendered Wednesday afternoon, after she was granted a $100,000 bond on Tuesday. 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.
Bond agreements have yet to be reported for Jeffrey Clark, the former senior Justice Department official who advocated for Trump's claims of election fraud; Mike Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; and Harrison Floyd and Trevian Kutti, alleged collaborators in an effort to intimidate Fulton County poll worker Ruby Freeman.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is the prosecutor spearheading the case, gave all of the defendants until noon on Friday to turn themselves in at the jail in Atlanta.
Misty Hampton, who was Coffee County’s elections supervisor during the 2020 election and is captured on video during the coordinated data breach, was also granted a bond of $10,000.
Late Tuesday night, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office released booking photos of the first two defendants to surrender earlier that day. Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall was the first to surrender and released on a $10,000 bond, followed by Trump's campaign attorney John Eastman, who was released on a $100,000 bond.
Trump said on his Truth Social page that he plans to surrender for booking on Thursday, the eve of the Aug. 25 deadline. He was granted a $200,000 bond on Monday.
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