Former President Donald Trump was booked and quickly released at the Fulton County Jail Thursday evening during a trip from New Jersey to Atlanta that played out on primetime TV and capped a drama-filled day outside the facility.

Trump’s sprawling motorcade arrived at the jail at about 7:30 p.m. And he was released after about 20 minutes on a $200,000 bond agreement that bars him from threatening or intimidating anyone involved in the case – including on social media where the former president is prolific.

He is accused of violating Georgia’s RICO Act and a litany of other charges tied to efforts to overturn the election in a state where he lost by nearly 12,000 votes.

The Fulton County indictment represents Trump’s fourth this year and the first where his mugshot was taken. He faces 13 charges in Georgia, where he is accused of working with his allies to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on August 24, 2023. Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail, where was booked on 13 charges related to an alleged plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Trump has dismissed the charges as politically motivated and claims he genuinely believed the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen. The former president, who is the front-runner in the GOP race to challenge President Joe Biden next year, called the indictments a form of “election interference.”

“We did nothing wrong at all, and we have every right – every single right – to challenge an election that we think is dishonest, and we think it’s very dishonest,” Trump said during brief remarks to some reporters outside the jail Thursday.

But he is accused of taking his challenge too far. The Fulton County indictment handed up by a grand jury last week alleges that Trump and 18 others were part of a “criminal organization” that tried to illegally overturn the 2020 election results through a fake elector plot.

Twelve of the 19 defendants have been booked this week, including the surrender of Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, earlier in the day Thursday. Trump’s former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, turned himself in Wednesday.

The remaining seven, including a state senator who served as an “alternate” elector, have until noon Friday to surrender.

Read the 98-page indictment here.

Georgia’s election results were confirmed three times, including one recount that was done by hand. A state-led investigation and multiple lawsuits also failed to turn up the widespread fraud Trump has long falsely claimed thwarted his bid for a second term. Trump’s own Attorney General in 2020 told the former president that he’d lost Georgia’s election and there was no evidence of fraud.

Thursday also brought a flurry of legal filings about the venue for some of the defendants and the pace of the trial.

A Georgia state judge has scheduled an Oct. 23 racketeering trial for Kenneth Chesebro, who was an attorney for the Trump campaign. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked the judge, Scott McAfee, Thursday to schedule the trial for all 19 defendants on that date, an unexpectedly quick turnaround Willis proposed in response to Chesebro’s demand for a speedy trial.

McAfee ruled Thursday the trial date would only apply to Chesebro.

Chesebro is accused of violating Georgia’s RICO Act and committing other offenses as part of a scheme to appoint false electors. In Georgia he allegedly supplied the documents alternate GOP electors signed that said they appropriately cast the state’s 16 electoral ballots for Trump.

‘I have seen no real crime’

Outside the jail, Trump’s fans outnumbered his critics as his most ardent backers traveled from all over the country to line up along Rice Street in a show of support. A throng of reporters from all over the world gathered outside the county jail to observe the historic moment.

Many of Trump’s fans said the former president’s growing rap sheet – on top of two impeachment proceedings – is only making them more skeptical of the claims of his wrongdoing.

“Racketeering is about stealing money and stuff like that. That makes no sense,” said west Cobb County resident Jerry Ramsey, citing legal experts who have appeared on Fox News. “If you show me that some real crime was committed, then I might change my mind. But I have seen no real crime.”

Ramsey argues that Trump did what anyone else would do after coming up short in an election.

“Here in Georgia, he just called and said ‘Would y’all recount the vote?’ If I lost an election, I’d do the same thing,” he said.

Ray Worth, who lives in Carroll County, said he came out Thursday to “support freedom, the ability for us to speak freely.” He called Trump “an advocate for free speech.”

Worth said he doesn’t expect any evidence to come out that will convince him that Trump ran afoul of the law. He argues Trump was simply questioning the election results.

“You’re allowed to do that. This is a free country. It’s called freedom. You’re allowed to say what you feel is actually true. I believe what I feel is true, and he does too,” Worth said.

Trump’s brief jailhouse visit capped a long, intensely hot August day filled with circus-like energy. Some people were wearing costumes, including multiple “Uncle Sams” and some rats and a wolf that represented the anti-Trump crowd.

Several hours prior to the anticipated arrival of former President Trump, protesters were squaring off with dueling chants and shouting verbal jabs at one another. The sometimes-profane chants included calls to lock up Biden and Trump.

During the late afternoon, members of the Black Trump group were joined by self-proclaimed Mayor of Magaville rapper Forgiato Blow and others for an impromptu jam session featuring songs like Blow’s “Trump Saved the USA.”

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene showed up at the jail as Trump’s plane was landing at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, fresh off her trip to Wisconsin to serve as a surrogate for Trump at the first GOP presidential debate that he snubbed.

Greene swapped out her profile on social media with a mock mugshot in a show of solidarity, she told Right Side Broadcasting Network, a conservative network. “I’m ashamed of Georgia,” Greene said in the friendly interview.

But it wasn’t all Trump supporters outside the county jail on Rice Street.

One anti-Trump group outside the jail on Thursday was the Republicans Against Trump, also known as RAT. Its members wore black and white striped prison jumpsuits and full rat costumes. Their leader, Domenic Santana, said they want to see Trump held accountable for attempting to disrupt Georgia’s election process.

Meanwhile, Nadine Seiler flew down this week from Maryland to witness the historic arrest of Trump.

One of the few anti-Trump demonstrators to show up Thursday led to testy verbal confrontations with Trump supporters as she carried a banner proclaiming “Finally, Trump Arrested.”

“He tried to steal the vote of Black and brown people,” Seiler said. “That’s why he’s here because he tried to disenfranchise Black and brown voters.”

Georgia Recorder Editor John McCosh contributed to this report.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.

The Republican state officials who were favorite targets of former President Donald Trump in the wake of the 2020 presidential election are not among those coming to the embattled GOP frontrunner’s defense.

Trump and 18 others were named as defendants in a sweeping 98-page criminal indictment handed up by a Fulton County grand jury late Monday evening alleging a massive multi-state plot to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.

Trump reacted to Monday’s indictment with an announcement that he plans to unveil a report on “presidential election fraud” in Georgia at a press conference in New Jersey just days before the Aug. 25 deadline to surrender in Fulton County. That prompted Gov. Brian Kemp to fire off a social media post of his own.

“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” Kemp posted Tuesday in response to Trump. “For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor.

“The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus,” he added.

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who faced death threats in 2020 and high-pressure calls for his resignation, was on the receiving end of the Jan. 2, 2021, phone call where Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” nearly 12,000 votes – enough to reverse the election results.

Raffensperger simply said this in a statement Tuesday: “The most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it, or you don’t.”

Former GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who testified before the grand jury Monday, has been unsparing in his criticism of the former president since 2020 and said Monday that he hopes this will be a “pivot point” for Republicans.

Trump has been charged with three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, identified in one of the counts as Raffensperger. And a phone call to Kemp and multiple tweets about Kemp, including one where he called the governor an “obstructionist,” are cited in the indictment. Trump had been pressuring Kemp to call a special session.

Duncan did not run for reelection last year, but Kemp and Raffensperger both easily defeated Trump-backed Republican challengers in landslide victories, with Raffensperger winning a four-way contest outright with a little help from left-leaning voters.

The Fulton County case marks the fourth time the former president has been indicted this year, and it is the second indictment directly tied to his attempts to stay in power after losing his bid for reelection.

Trump, who has publicly dismissed the cases against him as politically motivated as he tries to win back the White House next year, faces a total of 13 counts in Georgia.

The former president and his allies are being prosecuted under Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act, which is patterned after federal law designed to target mafia leaders.

Some of the other charges defendants face include making false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit election fraud.

The indictment alleges the defendants “refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.” The “criminal organization” also included 30 unindicted co-conspirators, according to the indictment.

And it includes charges for other high-profile Georgia Republicans, including then-Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer and Shawn Still, who was a fake elector in 2020 and later elected to the state Senate.

A special prosecutor will be assigned to look at Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ actions separately, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Jones, who was a state senator during the 2020 election, was one of 16 “fake” electors who gathered at the state Capitol within weeks of President Joe Biden’s victory in a scheme to claim Georgia’s Electoral College votes for Trump.

The Jackson Republican is one of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators who are referenced but not named in the indictment. But he was ruled off limits during in the Fulton County special purpose grand jury investigation after District Attorney Fani Willis held a fundraiser for the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

Jones focused on Willis in a statement about the indictment Tuesday.

“The Fulton County District Attorney has spent millions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of man hours over the past two and a half years orchestrating a constant media and PR campaign for the sole purpose of furthering her own political career,” Jones said in a statement Tuesday.

Current state party leader, Josh McKoon, defended the slate of alternate electors Tuesday in an email to supporters, comparing a fake elector’s vote to a provisional ballot that only “preserves their right to vote if it is determined that their vote should be counted.”

“The Georgia Republican Party stands firmly on the side of a criminal justice system that does not have separate tracks depending on whether you have the ‘right’ political views,” he wrote.

‘Witch hunt’

Among Trump’s political allies, the Fulton County indictment was met with now-familiar outrage.

Georgia GOP First District Chair Kandiss Taylor, who unsuccessfully challenged Kemp in last year’s primary, blasted Georgia Republican lawmakers for not coming to the former president’s aid.

“The silence of ALL GA Legislators is DEAFENING!” she said in a Tuesday morning post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We have a literal witch-hunt going on in GA against innocent men and (women) and the man we elected President and NOTHING. We see you. We won’t forget. COWARDS. Don’t ask for a dime of our money. Don’t ask for a minute of our time.”

Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter, a Pooler Republican, called for a congressional investigation into “DA Willis’ WITCH HUNT against the former president.” Congressman Andrew Clyde of Athens accused Willis of attempting to rig the 2024 election.

“SHAM INDICTMENT #4,” he tweeted. “This isn’t about the 2020 election. It’s about the 2024 election. The Left is dangerously abusing the power of prosecution to interfere in the upcoming election because they’re terrified of facing President Trump at the ballot box.”

Conservative firebrand Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had a lot to say about the indictment Tuesday, alleging that the indictment is communist and intended to abridge conservatives’ free speech.

The Rome Republican also suggested that voters care more about economic issues than prosecuting the former president.

“The media and elite Democrats need to stop pearl clutching in their Trump Derangement support groups and go out in the real world where seniors and working folks can’t afford food, bills, and gas,” she posted to social media.

Carter, Clyde and Greene were among the six Georgia representatives to formally object to the election results during the congressional proceedings held on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters disrupted the process.

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.