Former President Donald Trump surrendered on Thursday, to authorities in Fulton County, Georgia, where he is facing charges of solicitation of election fraud and conspiracy to commit election fraud in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential contest.
Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to be indicted on criminal charges, and while he was indicted in three other jurisdictions, his mugshot was taken only after he surrendered at the jail in Atlanta—where he is listed as Inmate No. P01135809.
For the fourth time this year, Donald Trump turned himself into authorities after being indicted on criminal charges — but it was the first time the former president was required to pose for a mug shot.
Trump retained Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based white-collar defense attorney, to represent him in the Fulton County case, replacing Drew Findling, who is no longer representing him in the matter.
Some outlets with a right-wing bias like Fox News and National Review highlighted how Trump used the moment to return to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a post that’s been seen over 120 million times as of Friday morning.
“They insisted on a mug shot and I agreed to do that,” Trump said to Fox News. “This is the only time I’ve ever taken a mugshot.”
Trump said the United States is “doing horribly, but now, it is doing worse because we have become a Third World country.”
The court set Trump’s bail at $200,000, so he was quickly processed and released Thursday evening.
The jail records say that Trump stood at 6 feet, 3 inches, weighed 215 pounds, has “Blonde or Strawberry” hair and blue eyes.
Trump’s booking at the Fulton County Jail came 10 days after the former president was charged in Georgia in what was his fourth criminal indictment since March — and his second tied to his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results and remain in the White House.
Trump’s Atlanta surrender was unlike his experience in other jurisdictions, which waived a booking photo and processed Trump in courthouse facilities. Fulton County officials treated Trump no differently than any other Atlanta-area arrestee.
Trump was required to turn himself in at the notorious county jail known as “Rice Street,” where inmate deaths and decrepit conditions recently prompted a Justice Department civil rights investigation.
The former president had his height and weight recorded and was fingerprinted and photographed. Unlike other arrestees, he was booked and released in roughly 20 minutes on a $200,000 bond negotiated earlier in the week by his legal team.
He arrived and departed through a back entrance of the facility where he did not interact with anyone in the jail population.
CNN opinion analyzed the photo, calling it “stark in its simplicity” and saying it “does not radiate his trademark bravado,” but rather accents how Trump is “beholden to a process where he cannot control his own fate.”
BBC News said Trump “joins the ranks of American public figures who have had arrest booking photos, including Frank Sinatra, Al Capone and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”
The trial is expected to begin on March 4, 2024.