Donald Trump says he will surrender to Fulton
county authorities on Thursday
‘Can you believe it?’ ex-president says in post
announcing his imminent booking for his alleged role in subverting the 2020
election
Martin
Pengelly in Washington
@MartinPengelly
Mon 21 Aug
2023 21.33 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/21/donald-trump-bond-set-fulton-county-georgia
Former
President Donald Trump says he will surrender to authorities in Georgia on
Thursday to face charges in the case accusing him of illegally scheming to
overturn his 2020 election loss.
“Can you
believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,”
Trump wrote on his social media network on Monday night, hours after court
papers said his bond was set at $200,000.
Republican
presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he
campaigns at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. August 12, 2023.
In a court
document posted online on Monday, bond amounts for the 13 charges against the
former president ranged from $10,000, for counts including criminal conspiracy
and filing false documents, to $80,000, for a violation of the Georgia Rico
Act, often used against organised crime.
Terms
included a prohibition of “act[ing] to intimidate any person known to … be a
codefendant or witness in this case”, including in “posts on social media”.
Authorities
in Georgia are investigating threats made to grand jurors.
The bond
document also said Trump “shall not communicate in any way, directly or
indirectly, about the facts of this case with any person known to him to be a
codefendant in this case except through his or her counsel”.
Fulton
county district attorney Fani Willis has set a deadline of noon on Friday for
Trump and his 18 co-defendants to turn themselves in to be booked. The
prosecutor has proposed that arraignments for the defendants follow during the
week of 5 September. She has said she wants to try the defendants collectively,
and bring the case to trial in March of next year, which would put it in the
heat of the presidential nominating season.
In Fulton
county, when defendants are not in custody, their lawyers and the district
attorney’s office will often work out a bond amount before arraignment and the
judge will sign off on it. The defendants will generally be booked at the
Fulton county jail. During the booking process, they are typically photographed
and fingerprinted and then they provide certain personal information. Since
Trump’s bond has already been set, he will be released from custody once the
booking process is complete.
John
Eastman, a law professor who advised Trump in his attempt to overturn his
defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, saw bond set at $100,000.
Defendants
also include the former New York mayor and Republican presidential hopeful Rudy
Giuliani. The deadline for defendants to turn themselves in is 12pm ET on
Friday.
The
document concerning Trump’s bond was signed by Scott McAfee, a superior court
judge, three Trump lawyers and Willis, who last week secured indictments of
Trump and 18 aides and allies.
Willis has
proposed that arraignments begin in the week of 5 September before a trial in
March.
Trump
denies wrongdoing in Georgia and in three other indictments which have produced
a total of 91 criminal charges.
The charges
cover federal and state election subversion in 2020, the retention of
classified information after leaving office, and hush-money payments to a porn
star during the 2016 election.
Despite
such unprecedented legal jeopardy – to which can be added civil investigations
of Trump’s business affairs and a defamation case in which a judge said Trump
was adjudicated a rapist – the former president dominates the race for the
Republican presidential nomination.
Ahead of
the first debate on Wednesday, which Trump will not attend, he leads his
nearest challenger, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, by about 40 points in
national polling averages and by wide margins in key states.
On social
media on Monday, some observers doubted that Trump, notorious for attacking
enemies on social media (which he did the same day, aiming at the Georgia
governor, Brian Kemp), would abide by the terms of his bond.
“Barring a
real come-to-Jesus moment,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State law
professor, “the only way Trump doesn’t violate his … conditions is if his
lawyers confiscate his phone.”
Others
noted how Trump has leveraged his predicament to fund his campaign to return to
the White House, widely seen as his best hope of avoiding prison.
Ron
Filipkowski, a Florida attorney turned viral Trump critic, said it was “time to
shake down the donors”.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário