President Trump surrenders in Atlanta for arrest

Donald Trump surrendered Thursday at the Fulton County jail on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results, the fourth time this year the former president has faced criminal charges.

Trump spent a little more than 20 minutes at the Fulton County jail, where he was processed and released on bond. Jail records showed him at 6 foot 3 inches tall and weighing 215 pounds, with blue eyes and blond or strawberry hair. His booking number was P01135809.

A mug shot of Trump was released soon after he left the jail.

Trump’s surrender in Georgia marks the fourth time this year the former president has turned himself in to local or federal officials after criminal charges were brought against him – episodes that had never been seen in the US before 2023.

The scene of Trump traveling to be arrested while denouncing the charges against him as politically motivated repeated itself again Thursday, but that still didn’t shake the remarkable and unprecedented scene of a former president – and the leading GOP candidate for the White House in 2024 – facing a criminal indictment.

Trump called being at the jail a “terrible” and “very sad” experience in an interview later Thursday with Newsmax, adding: “In my whole life I didn’t know anything about indictments and now I’ve been indicted like four times.”

In April, Trump was booked in New York on state charges related to a hush money scheme. In June, he surrendered at a Miami federal courthouse to face charges in special counsel Jack Smith’s probe into the mishandling of classified documents. And earlier this month, Trump was placed under arrest in Washington, DC, and arraigned on charges brought by Smith in his investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

All of those cases could come to a head next year at the same time that Trump is running for president.

Like most of his 18 co-defendants in the sprawling racketeering case who have already surrendered at the jail, Trump was quickly processed through the facility will because the former president and his lawyers have already negotiated his consent bond agreement. Trump agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions, including not using social media to target the co-defendants and witnesses in the case.

Trump covered the cost of his $200,000 bond by putting 10% toward it and working with a local Atlanta bonding company called Foster Bail Bonds LLC, sources told CNN.

Trump departed his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club for Georgia on Thursday afternoon, touching down in Atlanta on his private plane a little after 7p.m. ET

Trump’s motorcade traveled to the Fulton County jail for his arrest. After spending roughly 20 minutes at the jail, Trump returned to the airport, where he briefly spoke to reporters before boarding his plane without taking questions.

“What has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong and everybody knows it,” Trump said. “I’ve never had such support and that goes with the other ones too. What they’re doing is election interference.”