Former President Donald Trump is set to surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday afternoon, even as a stream of his closest allies report to face charges in the case that accuses them of a sweeping racketeering scheme to overturn the results of his 2020 presidential election loss in the state.
“I WILL PROUDLY BE ARRESTED TOMORROW AFTERNOON IN GEORGIA,” Trump posted to his social media site on Wednesday morning.
Trump’s booking will mark the second time this month that the twice-impeached former president was made to face charges related to efforts to overturn the results of a free and fair vote. He is expected to be arraigned in the coming weeks. In total, Trump is staring down 91 state and federal charges across four indictments – the other two related to his mishandling of classified documents and hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges thus far and strenuously maintained his innocence.
Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, appears to be counting on his surrender to create a media circus outside the Fulton County jail – as his arrests in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C., did – in an attempt to undercut any challengers who may have a breakout moment at the first GOP presidential debate Wednesday evening. Trump has said that he doesn’t plan to debate in the primary due to his record-setting lead in the polls.
But the atmosphere will likely be business as usual inside the jail, where Sheriff Pat Labat has maintained that Trump will be treated like anyone else accused of a crime by a grand jury. That likely means he will be fingerprinted and photographed – the latter of which was not required during his three previous arrests.
Earlier on Wednesday, four of his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case surrendered, including Atlanta lawyer Ray Smith, Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro, former Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer and Cathy Lathom, the former GOP chairwoman for Coffee County and a member of the Georgia Republican Party's executive committee.
Conservative lawyer John Eastman and bail bondsman Scott Hall surrendered on Tuesday. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is expected to surrender Wednesday afternoon.
The 11 others have until Friday at noon to surrender or Willis will issue a warrant for their arrest.
One of the most high-profile co-defendants, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, petitioned to delay his surrender date until a federal judge rules as to whether the charges against him in the Georgia case can be moved to a federal court. That hearing is slated for Monday.
But Willis rejected that request, saying in response that she would grant no extensions.
“I gave 2 weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court,” she wrote. “Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy. At 12:30 pm on Friday I shall file warrants in the system.”
Ahead of his surrender, Trump painted himself as a martyr to supporters and repeated on social media and in campaign fundraising emails unfounded claims that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” and rife with “fraud, irregularities and cheating.”
In reality, the former president lost in 2020 by some 11,779 votes in Georgia but has insisted that hundreds of thousands of votes in his favor had gone uncounted due to ballot stuffing, faulty voting software and voter fraud related to mail-in ballots, out-of-state voters and voters who are deceased. The state’s GOP establishment, including Gov. Brian Kemp, has long assured him that the count was fair and accurate.
