Former President Donald J. Trump surrendered at the Fulton County prison in Atlanta on Thursday and used to be booked on 13 legal fees for his efforts to opposite his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
It used to be an ordinary scene: a former U.S. president who flew on his personal jet to Atlanta and surrendered at a prison compound surrounded via concertina cord and indicators that directed guests to the “prisoner intake” space.
As Mr. Trump’s motorcade of black S.U.V.s drove to the prison via cleared streets, preceded via greater than a dozen police bikes — a go back and forth captured via news helicopters and broadcast survive nationwide tv — two worlds collided in techniques by no means earlier than observed in American political historical past. The country’s former commander in leader walked right into a infamous prison, person who has been cited in rap lyrics and is the topic of a Department of Justice investigation into unsanitary and dangerous prerequisites, together with allegations that an “incarcerated person died covered in insects and filth.”
The case is the fourth introduced towards Mr. Trump this yr, however Thursday used to be the primary time that he used to be booked at a prison.
Mr. Trump spent about 20 mins there, filing to one of the crucial routines of legal defendant consumption. He used to be fingerprinted and had his mug shot taken. He used to be assigned an identity quantity, P01135809. But the method used to be sooner than for many defendants; mins after he entered the prison, Mr. Trump’s document gave the impression in Fulton County’s reserving device, which indexed him as having “blond or strawberry” hair, a peak of 6 ft 3 inches and a weight of 215 kilos — 24 kilos lower than the White House physician reported Mr. Trump weighing in 2018.
His shape used to be stuffed out in advance via aides, in line with somebody accustomed to the arrangements, no longer via officers at the prison.
Outside, supporters and detractors of Mr. Trump had accrued all day in the swampy Atlanta warmth. The news media used to be saved at bay. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office barred journalists from gaining access to the parking space in entrance of the prison’s primary front, a spoil with custom.
Before leaving Atlanta on his airplane, Mr. Trump used to be defiant. The Georgia case, he mentioned, used to be a “travesty of justice.”
“We have every right to challenge an election we think is dishonest,” he mentioned.
The former president’s bond in the case used to be set at $200,000 on Monday, and he used a business bondsman, Charles Shaw of Foster Bail Bonds, to post his bond in trade for $20,000, the bondsman showed.
In a final minute shake-up of his criminal staff earlier than he surrendered on Thursday, Mr. Trump employed Steven H. Sadow, a veteran legal protection legal professional in Atlanta whose shoppers have incorporated distinguished rappers. In a submitting to the courtroom, Mr. Sadow mentioned he used to be now “lead counsel of record for Donald John Trump.”
Lawyers on all sides of the case filed a flurry of criminal motions on Thursday. After one of the crucial 19 defendants, the legal professional Kenneth Chesebro, demanded a fast trial, Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district legal professional who’s prosecuting the case, requested a pass judgement on to set an ordeal date of Oct. 23, months previous than she had at first sought.
Mr. Trump objected to that timing, a sign that he desires to transport extra slowly. The pass judgement on licensed the October trial date, however just for Mr. Chesebro. The final date of any trial, on the other hand, is probably not transparent till efforts via one of the crucial defendants to transport the case to federal courtroom are resolved.
Mr. Trump is at the highest of the record of nineteen defendants in the indictment launched final week. Prosecutors used a state model of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, that they hope will permit them to turn the techniques in which Mr. Trump and a number of other of his allies labored in combination towards the average purpose of in quest of to overturn the result of the election in Georgia.
The RICO statute is continuously used towards the mafia and side road gangs. In the Georgia indictment, Mr. Trump and his co-defendants are accused of impersonating a public officer, forgery, submitting false paperwork, influencing witnesses, conspiracy to defraud the state and “acts involving theft,” amongst different crimes.
The indictment lays out the broadest set of accusations leveled towards the previous president to this point. Georgia’s racketeering legislation can lift legal consequences of between 5 and twenty years in jail.
It is the second one case focused on Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Jack Smith, the particular suggest, introduced the opposite, a federal case, previous in August.
Ms. Willis started her investigation after a recording of Mr. Trump used to be launched in which he advised Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he sought after to “find” 11,780 votes, yet another than he had to win the state and its Electoral College votes. Mr. Trump later described the decision to Mr. Raffensperger as “absolutely perfect.”
His defiance in the face of the 4 instances lodged towards him has supplied political oxygen for his marketing campaign and an important fund-raising providence.
After his first indictment in March, which charged him in a hush-money scheme to hide up a possible intercourse scandal, Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign reported elevating $15 million in the 2 weeks that adopted.
In June, an indictment in Miami that focused on categorized paperwork used to be adopted via $7 million in fund-raising, Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign reported.
Hours earlier than he used to be set to be booked on Thursday, Mr. Trump despatched out a fund-raising e mail. “This arrest — and every one of these four sham indictments,” he wrote, “have all been designed to strike fear into the hearts of the American people, to intimidate you out of voting to save your country and ultimately, to interfere in the 2024 election.”
In 4 contemporary polls, a majority of respondents mentioned the legal fees towards Mr. Trump have been warranted. But at the similar time, Mr. Trump’s status amongst Republican citizens is powerful, and he’s preserving onto a substantial lead towards his Republican number one opponents.
He declined to participate in the primary number one debate of the 2024 marketing campaign on Wednesday, which featured 8 of Mr. Trump’s opponents for the Republican nomination. Bret Baier, one of the crucial debate’s moderators on Fox News, quipped that Mr. Trump used to be the “elephant not in the room.”
Mr. Trump could also be neck and neck towards President Biden in contemporary polls. A Quinnipiac University ballot this month confirmed him trailing Mr. Biden via a unmarried share level, 47 % to 46 %, in a hypothetical rematch. Mr. Biden’s merit used to be 5 share issues in July.
Outside the Fulton County prison, supporters of Mr. Trump got here early in the day, hoping for a glimpse of the previous president. Rick Hearn, 44, an Atlanta accountant, introduced a poster with him that confirmed a picture of Mr. Trump subsequent to considered one of Nelson Mandela, with the label “political prisoners.”
“I feel like I needed to be a part of this,” Mr. Hearn mentioned,
“Those in charge,” he added, wish to know that they can’t “take away our rights and get away with it.”
Alan Feuer, Neil Vigdor, Ruth Igielnik, Maggie Haberman, Sean Keenan, Anna Betts and Christian Boone contributed reporting.