Trump becomes first US president in history to receive mug shot: ‘Not a comfortable feeling’
Former President Donald Trump made the wrong kind of history Thursday, becoming the first current or former US president to get his mug shot taken while being booked at an Atlanta jail over his attempts to reverse the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Trump, 77, turned himself in to authorities at the Fulton County Jail following his grand jury indictment on Aug. 14 on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, false statements and asking a public official to violate their oath of office.
He was released on a $200,000 bond and agreed to an order limiting his ability to post on social media about witnesses or co-defendants in the case.
Getting his mugshot taken was “not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong,” the former commander in chief told Fox News Digital hours later.
“They insisted on a mugshot and I agreed to do that,” he added. “This is the only time I’ve ever taken a mugshot.”
Trump attorney Alina Habba said earlier this month that the decision to snap a mug shot of the former president was “a bit of an ego trip” on the part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
“The purpose of a mug shot is when you don’t recognize someone, you think there’s a flight risk,” Habba told Fox News. “This man is the most famous person in the world, the leading [Republican] candidate right now.”
The 41-count indictment also charged 18 other Trump allies and supporters, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro — all of whom surrendered this week for booking.
The lawyers were joined by GOP poll watcher Scott Hall, former Coffee County GOP chair Cathy Latham, former Georgia state Sen. David Shafer and Georgia lawyer Ray Smith.
Bonds were set at $100,000 for Eastman, Powell, Ellis and Chesebro; $75,000 for Latham; $75,000 for Shafer; and $50,000 for Smith.
Ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned himself in hours before his former boss on Thursday and was released on $100,000 bond.
Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump’s 2020 Election Day director of operations Michael Roman also surrendered to authorities overnight in Fulton County.
Meadows and Clark petitioned for their surrender to be postponed until a separate request that the case be moved to federal court is heard.
US District Court Judge Steven Jones denied both requests on Wednesday.
Attorneys Ray Smith and Robert Cheeley, Shawn Still, former Black Voices for Trump executive director Harrison Floyd, and former Coffee County official Misty Hampton also turned themselves in on Thursday. The other co-defendants — Illinois pastor Stephen Lee and former Kanye West publicist Trevian Kutti — have until Friday at noon to surrender.
Willis has requested a March 4, 2024, trial date for the case.
All 19 defendants were charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a version of a statute Giuliani used to bring down members of the mob while a federal prosecutor in the 1980s.
Trump insists they “did nothing wrong at all.”
“This is all about election interference,” he told Fox News Digital Thursday. “It all comes through Washington and the DOJ and Crooked Joe Biden—nothing like this has ever happened in our country before.
“We did nothing wrong at all. And we have every right, every single right, to challenge an election that we think is dishonest, that we think is very dishonest.”
The Georgia indictment is the fourth brought against the 45th president so far this year, following federal cases over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Washington, DC, and his alleged mishandling of classified documents in South Florida.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg also indicted Trump for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election in order to silence her about an alleged decade-old affair.
