Donald Trump will turn himself in to a Georgia jail on Thursday to face racketeering charges. This will set up his fourth criminal trial for next year while he tries to return to the White House.
The 77-year-old former president will be arrested at Atlanta’s notorious Fulton County Jail. He is accused of working with 18 other suspects to try to change the results of the 2020 election in a key southern state.
The wealthy real estate tycoon’s booking, which may include a mugshot for the first time, comes just hours after he skipped a Republican primary debate with eight of his rivals for the 2024 presidential nomination.
Even though Donald Trump wasn’t on stage at the televised debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he still stole the show and was the focus of many of the questions asked of the candidates running to be the Republican nominee next year.
When asked if they would back Donald Trump as the party’s nominee even if he were convicted in one of the four criminal cases he faces, every candidate raised their hand except for former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
Donald Trump chose to interview Tucker Carlson, a former host of a rights talk show on Fox News.
During the rambling pre-recorded interview, which played on X, formerly known as Twitter, at the same time as the debate, Trump said it didn’t make sense for him to take part when he was ahead of his competitors in the polls by “50 to 60 points.”
“Do I have to sit there for an hour or two, depending on how long it takes, and deal with people who shouldn’t even be running for president?” What he said.
Donald Trump said that the four criminal charges against him were “nonsense” and that Democratic President Joe Biden had “weaponized” the Justice Department to hurt his chances of becoming president.
The overcrowded Fulton County Jail, which the Justice Department is looking into for some inmate deaths and appalling living conditions, had a strong security perimeter in place before Trump’s visit.
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who brought the broad racketeering case, gave the 19 suspects until Friday at noon (1600 GMT) to turn themselves in.
There is no exact time for Donald Trump’s arrival, but the former president said it would be Thursday afternoon in a post on his Truth Social website.
“Nobody has ever fought for election integrity like President Donald J. Trump,” he wrote, using all capital letters. “For doing so, I will be proudly arrested tomorrow afternoon in Georgia.”
Donald Trump was arrested three times this year. In New York, he was accused of paying hush money to a porn star; in Florida, he was accused of mishandling top-secret government papers; and in Washington, he was accused of plotting to change the results of his 2020 election loss. In each case, he was able to avoid having a mugshot taken.
But Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said that it is normal in Georgia for a suspect to get a mugshot before being freed on bond, which in Trump’s case is already set at $200,000.
Trump’s surrender comes a day after that of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s lawyer while he was in the White House and worked hard to spread false claims that Trump had won the 2020 election.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff in the White House, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer, are also facing charges in Georgia. Eastman is accused of coming up with a plan to send a fake list of Trump electors from Georgia to Congress instead of the real Biden electors. Meadows is Trump’s chief of staff in the White House.
Four trials are coming up.
Trump has four criminal cases coming up next year, which is when the Republican primaries start in January and when the campaign for the presidential election in November 2024 is at its peak.
Special counsel Jack Smith wants Trump’s trial to start in Washington in January 2024. He is accused of plotting to change the results of the 2020 election through a campaign of lies that ended with his followers attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump’s lawyers have replied with a start date of April 2026, long after the 2024 election.
On Monday, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan will hold a meeting where she is likely to set a date for the first criminal trial of a former president.
Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, has asked for the crime case to start in March 2024. This is the same month that Donald Trump is supposed to go on trial in New York for paying porn star Stormy Daniels hush money on the day before the 2016 election.
In May, Donald Trump will be tried in Florida for taking government papers with him when he left the White House and refusing to return them.