Former President Donald Trump surrendered to Georgia officials Thursday night, less than 24 hours ahead of his deadline to appear after his fourth indictment since losing the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s private plane touched down in Atlanta just after 7 p.m. He traveled by car to the Fulton County jail, where he was fingerprinted, photographed, and booked. He posted a previously negotiated $200,000 bond and got back in a vehicle to return to the airport.
Before leaving the airport for his golf club in New Jersey, Trump spoke with reporters, telling them he had every right to challenge the 2020 election.
“If you challenge an election, you should be able to challenge an election,” he said.
Trump said that Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent, and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams “did the same thing” he did, although both of them conceded their elections after all the votes were tallied. Neither even filed court challenges, which Trump did unsuccessfully more than 60 times.
“What has taken place here is a travesty of justice,” he said before boarding his private plane. “We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. And everybody knows it.”
Trump and his 18 codefendants are not charged with challenging the 2020 election, however. They are charged with illegal attempts to have the votes in Georgia altered to swing the state from the eventual winner, as CrimeOnline previously reported. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has charged them under the state’s stringent RICO act with racketeering and other charges.
Eleven of those codefendants have already surrendered and paid their bonds, with the exception of Black Voices for Trump leader Harrison Floyd, who remains jailed after failing to negotiate bond.
One of those defendants, Kenneth Chesebro, filed Wednesday for a speedy trial. Willis responded to Chesebro’s motion early Thursday, offering an October 23 start date for the trial of all the defendants. Late Thursday afternoon, Judge Scott McAfee agreed to the date for Chesebro only “at this time,” and not any of the other defendants, including Trump, Politico reported.
Trump indicated he would try to have his case severed from the others if the judge expedited all the cases. His attorney previously suggested a 2026 start.
Trump also came into Fulton County with a new attorney after firing Drew Findling, who has represented Gucci Mane, Offset, and others, and replacing him with another hip-hop lawyer, Steve Sadow, who recently got Gunna out of prison, Variety reported.
Three of the defendants — former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and former Georgia Republican Party chairman David Schafer — are seeking to have their trials transferred to federal court. Meadows and Clark also unsuccessfully tried to have a judge bar their arrests.
Earlier on Thursday, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced he was opening an investigation into Fulton County’s Willis, accusing her of carrying out a politically motivated prosecution, the New York Times reported.
Trump has previously been indicted for falsifying business records to cover a hush money payment to porn start Stormy Daniels in state court New York and in federal courts in Florida — for mishandling classified documents — and Washington, D.C. — for interfering in the official process of counting the electoral votes to certify Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021.
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[Featured image: Donald Trump/Fulton County Sheriff’s Office via AP]
