In a sense Donald Trump’s surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday marks the end of a two-year chapter of investigating his efforts to lead a coup to overturn the 2020 election results. It also marks the beginning of the next chapter – the trials to convict him.
Still, it would be a mistake to assume that the mugshot and the spectacle of Trump’s surrender at jail on Thursday will harm Trump politically. Instead, it is only likely to more deeply entrench support from those who back Trump and believe he is being persecuted.
As both a candidate and president, Trump has made the politics of grievance, the feeling of being persecuted and wronged, central to his political identity. Trump is already using his indictments to rally his supporters. When he surrendered in New York earlier this year, officials waived a mugshot. Trump’s campaign quickly released a fake one and began fundraising with it instead.
The booking, and the indictment that came before it, is also the latest step in what is likely to be a sustained and nasty battle, both in the public domain and in court, between Trump and Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney. Trump has already attacked Willis, a Democrat and the first Black woman to hold her office, saying – of all things – that she is racist. Willis has not responded to those attacks, and urged those in her office to ignore them, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” she wrote in an email earlier this month.
We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.
Trump allies, both in Georgia and in Washington DC, have already begun separate efforts to make Willis’s work as difficult as possible. But Willis, who has a reputation for being an aggressive prosecutor, hasn’t blinked. So far, she’s headed off last-ditch efforts by Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, two of Trump’s co-defendants, to avoid surrendering.
For all the fanfare of Trump’s surrender, the most significant developments may be what happens far away from Rice Street and the Fulton county courthouse. Trump wields a commanding lead in the polls for the Republican nomination for president.
Asked during the first Republican debate on Wednesday if they would support Trump if he was the nominee, nearly all of the candidates said yes.
One by one this week, they’ve made their way to 901 Rice Street, the address of the notorious Fulton county jail. Lawyers, government officials, a former state party chair and others have all surrendered to authorities after being charged as part of an alleged criminal effort to overturn the 2020 election.
On Thursday, the head of that enterprise, Donald Trump, himself surrendered, marking another historic moment for a president who has reshaped the rules of American politics. This is the closest that Trump has been to a jail cell to date and serves as a blunt reminder that no American or former president is above the law.
Like nearly everything Trump does, his surrender was orchestrated to be a spectacle. He deliberately timed his surrender, 7.30pm, to maximize cable news coverage. Reporters camped outside the jail all day on Thursday as temperatures reached mid-90s F and Trump supporters gathered for a demonstration. There was wall-to-wall news coverage of Trump’s motorcade and arrival at the jail. While politicians typically try and shift attention away from their criminal legal troubles, Trump has embraced it, feeding into the circuit by advertising his surrender time.
Despite Trump’s brashness, the gravity of the moment is underscored by the venue where Trump surrendered. In his other three cases, Trump has surrendered in courthouses and then quickly appeared in a courtroom for an arraignment. On Thursday, he’ll turn himself in at a jailhouse that has been so beset by horrific conditions that it’s under investigation from the Department of Justice. For the first time, he’ll have to post a cash bond – $200,000 – to guarantee his release.
In the other three instances, Trump has avoided the indignity of a mugshot. On Thursday, he got one that will be released to the public. For a man who cares deeply about perception, the image released on Thursday by the Fulton county sheriff will be inescapable, forever establishing him as the only president to ever be criminally prosecuted with a mugshot. It is also likely to be one that is forever part of America’s story – a snapshot of the president and a movement who tried to bend American institutions and tested the contours of American governance and the rule of law at every opportunity.
Donald Trump steps off his plane as he arrives at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta international airport on his way to Fulton county jail. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
Donald Trump tweeted for the first time since 2021 on Thursday night, posting the mugshot from his booking at Fulton county jail in Georgia on charges of election interference earlier on Thursday.
The former president returned to the social media site, now known as X, with a post linking to his website and featuring the words “Election interference! Never surrender!” following his surrender at Fulton County jail on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
It has been Trump’s main source of direct communication with his followers since he began posting on the app regularly in May. The former president has used it to promote his allies, criticise his opponents and defend his reputation amid legal scrutiny from state, congressional and federal investigators.
Trump had 6.4m followers on Truth Social as of Thursday. He still has more than 88m Twitter followers despite being banned from the platform following the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress by his supporters, amid the risk of further incitement of violence.
On 19 November the San Francisco-based app reversed the ban under billionaire Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who bought Twitter last year.
Musk restored the former president’s account after running a poll that received more than 15m votes and just narrowly won at nearly 52%. Despite the account being restored, Trump did not tweet until Thursday.
He has previously used Twitter and other social media platforms to make false claims that his defeat in the 2020 election was due to widespread voter fraud and to share other conspiracy theories.
Donald Trump’s mugshot – a first for a former American president in the country’s history – was released by the Fulton county sheriff’s office on Thursday after Georgia authorities denied his request to be excused from picture day.
Trump, who has been indicted four times this year, had so far managed to avoid the specter of a mugshot, though he has sought to profit from merch with a fake booking photo.
Asked weeks earlier whether the former president would be required to take a photo, the Fulton county sheriff Pat Labat, a Democrat, said:
It doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you.
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The former US president, Donald Trump,surrendered to Fulton county authorities on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia.
Trump, who has been indicted four times this year, tweeted a photo of his mugshot and the words “Election interference. Never surrender!” along with a link to his website, which directs to a fundraising page, after his release from the Atlanta jail.
Trump’s booking marked yet another stunning moment for the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 race as he became the first ever US president to have a mugshot taken. He denies wrongdoing in Georgia and in three other indictments which have produced a total of 91 criminal charges.
The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon today for the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case to turn themselves in to be booked. In a clear sign of her belief that her team is ready to go to trial immediately, Willis asked for the trial of all 19 defendants to start on 23 October.
Within hours, Trump’s legal team filed a motion opposing such a quick trial date, underscoring the former president’s overarching strategy to delay proceedings as much as possible – potentially until after the 2024 presidential election.
Here’s what else we’re watching today:
12pm eastern time: The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday for all 19 defendants in the Georgia election subversion case to turn themselves in to be booked.
2pm: Vice-president Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will welcome the Las Vegas Aces to the White House to celebrate their 2022 WNBA Championship.
President Joe Biden is vacationing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He plans to return to Washington on Saturday.
