Trump expected to surrender to jail Thursday or Friday
Former US president Donald Trump is expected to surrender himself to the Fulton County jail at the end of next week – on Thursday or Friday, a senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the surrender told CNN.
Trump and 18 co-defendants were charged on Monday in connection with a plot to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia. After the 41-count indictment was unsealed, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis set an August 25 deadline for their surrender, CNN reported.
Negotiations between Trump’s lawyers and Willis’ prosecutors are expected to continue into next week, ahead of the surrender deadline. The exact timing of Trump’s surrender remains unclear.
Trump’s expected surrender in Georgia comes the same week as the first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. The former president, however, is planning to skip the event and instead sit for an interview with former Fox News Host Tucker Carlson, multiple sources familiar with his plans told CNN on Friday – though he could change his mind.
Trump now faces a total of 91 charges across four criminal cases. His surrender and arraignment in Georgia are expected to look different from those in his previous three criminal cases. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has previously suggested he wants to treat Trump and the others named in the indictment similar to any other defendant. This could mean that they would have mugshots taken and be fingerprinted.
According to the indictment, Trump is accused of being the head of a “criminal enterprise” that was part of a broad conspiracy to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat. The group of defendants named in the Georgia indictment includes former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
The US Secret Service has been onsite at the Fulton County Jail for the last several weeks working with the Fulton County Sheriff Department and the city of Atlanta in planning for the former president’s surrender, a USSS spokesperson told CNN.