Trump and 18 co-defendants to be booked in Georgia jail

Donald Trump and the 18 co-defendants charged with racketeering and crimes for conspiring to subvert the 2020 presidential election in a “criminal enterprise” are set to be booked at a jail in Fulton county, Georgia, the local sheriff’s office said on Tuesday.

The grand jury has issued arrest warrants for all 19 defendants, said Fani Willis, the district attorney, during a news conference after she delivered a sweeping 41-count indictment late Monday night. Defendants have until 25 August to surrender voluntarily, after which they can expect to be arrested.

Trump and his co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for the ex-president and former New York City mayor, and Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, can “turn themselves in at any time” since the jail is open 24/7, the sheriff’s office said.

But the sheriff’s office added that “due to the unprecedented nature of this case, some circumstances may change with little or no warning”.

In Georgia, the booking process – which typically includes fingerprinting, collecting personal information and taking a booking photo (AKA mugshot) – is separate from the arraignment process. The presiding judge, Scott McAfee, who was appointed to the bench in February, can dictate whether defendants can appear virtually for their arraignments, where they can plead guilty or not guilty.

Trump, who faces a total of 91 charges across all four indictments, has pleaded not guilty to every felony count and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, calling the cases against him a “witch-hunt”. The Georgia indictment is Trump’s fourth in five months – and second related to his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.

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Trump has so far avoided taking a mugshot, despite being arranged three times, but that could soon change. Earlier this month, the Fulton county sheriff, Pat Labat, indicated that there could be a first-time Trump mugshot, which law enforcement officials elsewhere passed on.

“It doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you,” Labat told reporters ahead of the looming indictment. “Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices.”

Yet the Trump campaign has moved to capitalize on the ex-president’s criminal indictments, blasting supporters with fundraising requests and seeing contributions surge after each.

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Following his first arraignment in the case over hush money payments to an adult film actress in New York, the Trump campaign immediately launched merch, plastering a fake mugshot on to T-shirts and, well, mugs.

Trump’s three arraignments so far have drawn small crowds of spectators – including supporters and detractors – who gathered in Washington, Miami and New York to await Trump’s arrival.

“At this point, based on guidance received from the district attorney’s office and presiding judge, it is expected that all 19 defendants named in the indictment will be booked at the Rice Street jail,” according to the statement from Natalie Ammons, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.

While there has been new attention of the Rice Street jail, the institution itself has been consistently overcrowded, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into its conditions. Earlier this month, the county paid $4m to settle a lawsuit with the family of a man who died in a bedbug-infested cell three months after he was booked.