Chalk up another first for Donald Trump.
Chalk up another first for Donald Trump.
In the latest stage of his transformation from the world’s most powerful man to criminal defendant four times over, the ex-president pledged a $200,000 bond Monday, as he steels for another indignity unthinkable in his White House years.
The spectacle of him being booked at an Atlanta jail – which he said would take place on Thursday – will once again underscore the outlandish circumstances of a former and possibly future president facing multiple criminal trials. Trump’s arrival, sure to whip up a media circus, will trample any breakout moments by his adversaries in the first Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee Wednesday night. Trump is snubbing an event that he is working hard to overshadow, even wielding the theatrics of his own processing as a criminal defendant in a case that alleges he and 18 others tried to steal the 2020 election.
Trump has turned his humiliations from a previous trio of indictments into grist for his campaign theme that he’s a victim of political persecution. But his treatment in Georgia, which could include mug shots and fingerprints like anyone else accused of a serious crime, will underscore how the fourth case is different – and in ways that could eventually imperil him. This is also the first time his release conditions have included a cash bond.
“Despite the fact we have seen this before, there is no denying the historic nature of it,” Norm Eisen, a CNN legal analyst and former special assistant to President Barack Obama on ethics and government reform, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the way this surrender will work.
The Georgia indictment could be particularly troublesome to Trump because any powers to freeze proceedings or even pardon himself that he’d regain if elected president next year would only apply if convicted in federal cases. The sweeping indictment brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, would be beyond his reach.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump would put up the cash for bond himself or whether he’d seek to finance it through one of his political fundraising committees that he’s used to pay some of his own legal bills and those of some associates.
Tough terms included in Trump’s bond deal
The terms of Trump’s bond agreement were also noticeably tougher than minimal conditions imposed by a federal court in Washington, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and under a federal judge in Florida – in three separate cases to which Trump has pleaded not guilty.
