Frowning, furrowing his eyebrows, and staring at the camera, these were his features Former US President Donald Trump In a historical criminal photograph taken of him Thursday inside a prison in the state of Georgia during his brief arrest in the case of tampering with the results of the presidential elections.
This snapshot of the Republican billionaire will go down in history as the first criminal photo of a former US president.
Trump denounced a “judicial farce” after his official arrest Thursday on charges of extortion and conspiracy in Georgia, describing what happened as “election interference.”
“a judicial farce”
And he said Trump “What happened here is a judicial farce. We did nothing wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong,” he told reporters as he prepared to fly out of Atlanta, after he was briefly arrested and forensically photographed at the Fulton County Jail. “What they are doing is interference in the elections,” he added.
Trump did not specify who he accused of meddling, but he had previously denounced President Joe Biden and other Democrats, claiming that they were obstructing his re-election campaign. After taking his measurements, the former president was released on bail.
Trump had gone Thursday afternoon to the state of Georgia to surrender himself in one of its prisons, where his fingerprints were taken, in preparation for his trial on charges of attempting to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, in the fourth criminal trial in which he is being prosecuted while seeking to return to the White House.
Trump attended Fulton County Prison in Atlanta, Georgia, where the judiciary charged him and 18 other people with “extortion” and committing a number of crimes in an effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 elections in this key state that Biden won.
Before leaving for Atlanta, the state capital, the Republican billionaire wrote in a post on his social media platform, Truth, that it was “another sad day in America.”
Trump had previously written on the same platform that he was preparing to surrender himself to prison authorities in Fulton County at 19:30 (23:30 GMT). He added that he was being prosecuted “because I had the courage to question a fraudulent and stolen election.”
The arrest procedures mean that the accused’s fingerprints are taken and forensic photographs are taken before he is released on bail, the value of which was set in Trump’s case at $ 200,000.
Ten other defendants in this case had previously surrendered themselves in this prison, and all of them were released on bail, the last of whom was the former chief of staff at the White House, Mark Meadows, who paid a $100,000 bail and got out.
There is a single defendant in this case who was kept behind bars after he turned himself in, Harrison Floyd, and he was detained because he did not previously conclude an agreement with the judiciary to pay bail in exchange for his release.
Rice Street prison has become a magnet for journalists from all over the world, as they have been gathering in front of it for days under huge tents to cover the event of Trump’s surrender.
And all the defendants in this case who entered this prison to surrender themselves, and some of them under cover of night, got out of it to find their criminal photos that were taken of them inside it topping the news headlines.
Present absent from the Republican debates
Support for Trump is growing five months before the start of the primaries to select the Republican candidate for the 2024 US presidential elections, but many criminal cases overshadow his attempt to return to the White House.
Trump’s surrender to the Georgia authorities comes hours after the first debate in Milwaukee for the Republican primaries, in which the controversial billionaire chose not to participate, claiming that opinion polls confirm his lead by a large margin over the rest of his competitors.
Despite his absence from the debate, Trump was the most prominent present in it.
The debate began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, minutes after far-right broadcaster Tucker Carlson’s taped interview with Trump was broadcast on platform X.
“I decided it would be best for me not to participate in the debate. Do I sit there for an hour or two … and get harassed by people who shouldn’t even be running for president?” Trump said.
Trump confirmed that the charges against him in the four cases are โfrivolous, meaningless and contrived,โ accusing Biden of harnessing the Ministry of Justice to obstruct his attempt to reach the White House.
Attack on the American Constitution
Security was tight ahead of Trump’s arrival at the Fulton County Jail, a notoriously unsafe, unclean and vermin-infested detention center that is being investigated by the Justice Department after the deaths of several inmates.
By his arrival in prison on Thursday, Trump officially changed the attorney who will represent him in Georgia. No explanation was given as to why Trump replaced attorney Drew Findling with attorney Seven Sadow, one of the most prominent Atlanta attorneys, knowing that both men are accustomed to defending celebrities.
But Sado has in the past criticized the organized crime law that Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis has relied on to bring charges in this case.
These charges carry a prison sentence of between five and twenty years.
Willis had set a deadline of Friday noon (1600 GMT) for the defendants to appear voluntarily and turn themselves in.
Trump has not had to endure the indignity of being photographed on the three occasions he has been arrested this year: in New York on charges of paying to silence a pornographic actress, in Florida for mishandling top-secret government documents, and in Washington on charges of plotting to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.
However, Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labatt told reporters earlier this month that when it comes to arrests at the prison, “whatever your situation is, we’ll be willing to take your picture.”
In turn, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, accused of helping Trump manipulate the elections, turned himself in on Wednesday to Georgia state authorities, who later released him on $150,000 bail.
Giuliani said on Wednesday he had spoken to Trump to wish him luck when he turns himself in Thursday.
Upon leaving prison after posting bail, Giuliani attacked the judicial authorities, stressing that “what they are doing to him is an attack on the American Constitution.”
Among the defendants in this case are Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer.
The defendants in this case are supposed to all return to Atlanta in the week of September 5, to appear this time before the court and inform it whether or not they will plead not guilty of the charges against them.
Four trials during the election season
Trump faces four criminal trials next year during the Republican primary season that begins in January and at the height of the presidential campaign in November 2024.
Special Attorney General Jack Smith submitted a proposal to start Trump’s trial in January on charges of conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 elections and a campaign of lies that were behind the attack on the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, which was carried out by Trump supporters.
On the other hand, the lawyers for the former president requested that April 2026 be set as the date for the start of the trial of their client on the federal charges against him, which is conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 elections. The date requested by the lawyers is relatively far from the presidential elections scheduled for next year.
On August 28, Judge Tanya Chutkan is scheduled to issue her decision on the start date of the trial.
Attorney General Fanny Willis requested that the fourth of March be set as the date for the start of Trump’s trial in the case of fraud in the presidential election results in the state of Georgia, the same month that the former president is scheduled to stand trial in New York in the criminal charges against him in the case of falsifying documents related to He paid pornographic actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair.
In May next year, Trump is scheduled to appear before a grand jury in Florida in a case in which he is accused of violating the anti-espionage law.
France 24/AFP
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2023-08-25 05:30:02