GEORGIA: Former U.S. President Donald Trump left the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta about 20 minutes after he arrived to be booked on felony charges of racketeering and conspiracy linked to his alleged efforts to overturn his 2020 reelection loss in Georgia.
He arrived at the jail shortly after 7:30 p.m. EDT and his mugshot was taken there.
This marks an unprecedented fourth time that Trump was to be arrested and booked in the past five months.
Trump was released pending trial after paying a $200,000 bond his lawyers negotiated earlier this week with Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis.
Before boarding his plane at Atlanta’s airport, he spoke briefly to reporters about his arrest.
“What has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong, and everybody knows that,” Trump said. “What they’re doing is election interference,” he added.
“We did nothing wrong at all, and we have every right, every single right, to challenge an election that we think is dishonest,” Trump added.
He declined to answer questions from the press.
No previous U.S. president has been charged with criminal offenses, but Trump is now facing 91 charges across the four indictments for his alleged actions before, during and after his single-term presidency ended in early 2021.
He faces 13 charges in Georgia, where Willis on Thursday called for an October 23 start date for his trial and that of 18 co-defendants. But Trump and others could object to a trial starting in two months. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will ultimately pick the date.
Even with the array of charges he is facing, Trump is the leading Republican contender for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination to run against the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.
Regardless of when the trial in Atlanta might start, Trump is already facing weeks of criminal trials he would be obligated to appear at in the first half of 2024. But he made a calculated decision that his national polling lead over other Republican presidential hopefuls is so commanding — 40 percentage points or more — that he skipped the party’s first presidential debate Wednesday night.
The 77-year-old Trump, if convicted in any of the cases, could face years in prison.
He has denied all wrongdoing while assailing the three prosecutors pursuing the four cases against him and two of the four judges randomly picked to oversee his trials. He has claimed that the allegations leveled against him are a political witch hunt aimed at thwarting his 2024 campaign to reclaim the presidency.
In agreeing to the bond for his release in Georgia — the first time he has had to post cash to stay free pending trial — Trump also agreed to not threaten or intimidate witnesses, including on social media platforms.
For months, Trump has claimed that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who has filed two of the cases against him, is “deranged” and a “crackhead,” while contending that two other prosecutors, Alvin Bragg in a New York case, and Willis, both of whom are Black, are “racist” for filing their indictments against him.
(VOA)
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