Donald Trump surrendered, urging not to give up

Former US President Donald Trump arrived at the Fulton County, Georgia jail on August 24, where he turned himself in as a defendant in a criminal case of interference in the 2020 election. He was searched, fingerprinted and photographed in prison. He was released 20 minutes later on $200,000 bail, according to the Fulton County Jail website.

After completing the procedures, the ex-president got into the car and drove to the airport for the return flight to New Jersey, where one of his golf clubs is located. At the airport, he made a short speech to reporters and said that he had the right to question the results of the last elections. “The vote was rigged, it was a stolen election,” he added.

Trump became the first among former US presidents to be charged in criminal cases, and the published photo is the first official prison photo of a former head of state in the history of the country. Even before Trump’s plane landed in New Jersey, his campaign posted a picture of the ex-president on a Trump campaign fundraising website. “What happened is a parody of justice and election interference. The left wants to intimidate you and force you to vote for a political outsider,” the politician’s website says.

A little later, Trump posted the same photo on his social network page X (formerly Twitter) with the headline “Election interference. Never give up”. The ex-president’s account was blocked in January 2021 after a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol. In November last year, the new owner of the social network, Elon Musk, restored his page. Thus, the prison photo became Trump’s first tweet since January 8, 2021.

One of the allegations made by the Georgia authorities was that during the 2020 election, he called Republican Secretary of State Brad Ruffensberger and offered to help him “find 11,780 votes” to defeat Joe Biden in the district. The ex-president denies all the allegations and calls them a “witch hunt.” In total, 18 people are involved in this case, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. All must register by noon on August 25 in Fulton.

Criminal cases against the ex-president did not have a serious impact on his popularity. According to the summary data of polls from August 15-21 of the RealClearPolitics project, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans was 55.4%. For his rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, only 14.3% of supporters of the Republican Party are ready to vote.

Earlier, Trump refused to take part in the preliminary debate of the Republican presidential candidates, which for the first time since the start of the campaign took place live on Fox News on August 23. He argued this decision by the fact that his “popularity is unattainable for Republican competitors.” Instead, he gave an interview with former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson, which was released on the same day on the journalist’s X page.

In an interview, Trump once again called the criminal cases against him “politically motivated” and the previous elections “rigged.” He criticized the policy of President Biden in the Ukrainian direction and repeated that the armed confrontation in Ukraine would not have happened if he had been re-elected president in 2020. “This can be stopped very easily. It shouldn’t have started at all. They are people, whether they are Russians or Ukrainians, whoever they are,” Trump said. Then he again called Biden “the worst president in the history of America” ​​and criticized him for corruption in his family circle, referring to the criminal cases around his son Hunter.

In an interview with Carlson, Trump doubted that he would compete with the incumbent in the 2024 election. “I think he is mentally worse than physically. And physically, he is far from being an athlete, and indeed not an athlete at all, ”Trump added. – When he walks, he cannot lift his feet off the ground. <…> You look at him, and it seems that he walks on toothpicks. And then you see him on the beach where he can’t lift a chair.”

By itself, the filing of charges or conviction will not affect Trump’s ability to participate in the elections, according to US lawyer Igor Slabykh. Even if the ex-president is found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment, he will be able to continue the election campaign. At the same time, the expert continues, even in this case, the execution of the sentence will be postponed until the appeal is considered. “But before the elections this will not happen for sure, as it will take a long time,” Slabykh explained.

The uniqueness of the political case around Trump, according to Slabykh, lies in the fact that the former president has never been officially accused of committing crimes.