Trump surrenders in Georgia election subversion case

Former President Donald Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday evening and was booked on 13 state felony charges.

Donald Trump mug shot

Donald Trump mug shot
(Image credit: Fulton County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)

This is Trump's fourth criminal arrest in 2023, and comes after he was indicted last week with 18 allies collectively accused of conspiring to "unlawfully change the outcome of the [2020] election in favor of Trump."

Trump flew from New Jersey to Atlanta on his private plane, and had a police escort from the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to the Fulton County Jail. While there, he was fingerprinted and had his mug shot taken, before he was released on a $200,000 bond. "Trump's height and weight — listed as 6-foot-3 and 215 lbs. — were pre-reported in order to speed up the process," ABC News reported, citing a senior adviser to Trump.

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Before Trump arrived in Atlanta, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed a motion asking a judge to set a trial date of Oct. 23. Trump's lawyers objected to the timing, "indicating that he wants to move more slowly," The New York Times said. The attorneys also requested Trump's case be separated from co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, who has asked for a speedy trial.

Trump has added Steve Sadow, a veteran criminal defense lawyer, to his legal team for the Georgia case, replacing Drew Findling, who represented Trump over the last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. In a statement, Sadow called Trump "innocent of the charges brought against him" and claimed he "never should have been indicted."

By Thursday evening, about half of the 19 defendants in the case had been booked, including Trump's former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Willis' office has requested that all of their arraignments occur the week of Sept. 5.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.