Trump surrenders at Atlanta jail in election interference RICO case

ATLANTA (CN) — Former President Donald Trump turned himself in for booking at the Fulton County Jail Thursday evening for his charges in the Georgia 2020 election interference case.

On his Truth Social page, Trump said his arrest was by the “radical left, lowlife” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is spearheading the case accusing him and several of his allies of participating in a criminal enterprise to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump’s surrender in Atlanta comes just a day before the Aug. 25, noon deadline he and his 18 codefendants were given by Willis. He was released on a $200,000 bond as granted by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Monday.

It marks Trump’s fourth indictment since April, when he became the first former president in U.S. history to be charged with a crime. A mug shot is expected to be released later by the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department, as they have with the 11 other defendants in the case who have turned themselves in so far.

Hundreds of reporters from around the world gathered on the street across from the jail to capture the historical moment, as did several Trump supporters from Georgia and other states to show their devotion to the former president despite the charges against him.

Supporters and detractors of former President Donald Trump gathered outside the Fulton County jail ahead of his booking in the Georgia election interference case. (Megan Butler/Courthouse News)

Shawn Cox traveled two hours to express his support for Trump and what he believes was a stolen election. Cox said he believes Dominion voting systems “switched votes.”

“This can’t stand and no matter whether you like him or hate him, what’s going on now is wrong. These people out here are supporters of American people. That’s what Donald Trump represents,” said Cox.

Atlanta resident LaLa Cochran was on her regular bike ride when she saw the caravan of police vehicles blocking the roads surrounding the jail and decided to stop and check out the “circus.” She said she felt “dispirited” by the sight and that she “thought there would be representation from both sides.”

Just hours before Trump arrived at the jail, he replaced his prominent Atlanta lawyer Drew Findling with high-profile criminal defense attorney Steve Sadow with the firm Schulten, Ward, Turner & Weiss, who has experience in defending against RICO charges.

Under the terms of Trump’s consent bond order, he is not allowed to perform any acts of witness intimidation or communicate directly or indirectly about facts of the case with any of the codefendants unless it is through his attorney.

He is also forbidden from making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community,” including in “posts on social media or reposts of posts” by others on social media.

In the sprawling racketeering indictment Willis secured from a grand jury last week, Trump faces 13 felony charges that include violation of Georgia’s RICO Act, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree and false statements and writings.

Willis’ prosecution team accuses Trump and his codefendants 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.

Trump has called Willis’ investigation a “witch hunt” and has denounced any wrongdoing. He 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.

Prior to his surrender, Trump chose to skip out on the first Republican debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday and instead aired a taped interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. He wrote on his Truth Social page that he would not be participating in the debate because “the public knows who I am and what a successful presidency I had,” and noted that he leads in recent polls for the Republican primary.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows surrendered at the jail as well on Wednesday and was released on a $100,000 bond. Meadows filed an emergency motion on Tuesday to delay his surrender to the jail until after a hearing is held on whether his case will be moved to federal court, but it was denied by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones.

The 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.

Fulton Superior Judge Scott McAfee agreed for one of the defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, to have his trial commence on Oct. 23, of this year. The judge received a motion from Willis on Thursday requesting the date, after Chesebro filed a “demand for a speedy trial” on Wednesday. The prosecutor has said that she would be trying the defendants collectively and proposed that the trial start on March 4, just before primary elections kick off around the country. If approved by the judge, arraignments for the defendants would follow during the week of Sept. 5.

Harrison Floyd, the former director of Black Voices for Trump, also surrendered at the jail on Thursday and is the only defendant who will serving jail time as he did not obtain a consent bond order. Prosecutors say Floyd was part of an effort to intimidate Fulton County poll worker Ruby Freeman into a false admission of committing election fraud.

Rudy Giuliani, the most prominent of the defendants named after Trump himself, surrendered at the jail on Wednesday and was released on a $150,000 bond. He told reporters that “the allegations are completely false.” Other defendants who have surrendered this week are John Eastman, Scott Hall, David Shafer, Cathleen Latham, Kenneth Chesebro, Ray Smith, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, with bonds ranging from $10,000 to $100,000.

The Fulton County Jail where Trump and the other defendants were booked is currently under a civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice over concerns of extremely unsanitary and unsafe conditions, overcrowding, prevalent violence, injuries, homicides, and excessive force by officers. Launched in July, the investigation is also examining whether Fulton County and its Sheriff’s Office discriminate against persons with psychiatric disabilities inside the jail.

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