What to know
- Donald Trump surrendered at an Atlanta jail tonight after being indicted in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference probe. His mug shot has been released by the sheriff's office.
- Trump faces 13 felony counts for his scheme to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, including one count of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
- Many of his 18 co-defendants have already been booked, including lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell. The rest of them have until noon tomorrow to surrender.
Few Americans are mentally prepared for the year ahead
As Alex Wagner said minutes ago on MSNBC:
I find it distressing. He’s clearly quite angry. I also think everyone should get very used to that image because we’re going to see it emblazoned on a lot of things for a long time. And to me it seems like honestly the starting gun of the next year, which is this bizarre split screen we’re going to see between a man who is running for president and a man who is defending himself in multiple criminal trials.
This is the beginning of it. This is the march if you will for the year ahead. I don’t think any of us really mentally prepared for the complications, the tests. Trump in recent weeks started to temper his language around Jan. 6 and it being a “stolen election” — at least for a day, he seemed to be listening to his lawyers and was couching his language a little bit more cautiously.
I don’t think that’s going to last. And I think what we’re going to have to sort of manage as a democracy, as journalists, as just onlookers to history, is the ways in which this individual mug shot is going to test what is legally allowed for him to say as a defendant and as a candidate. I think the justice system is going to be tested like never before. I think our ability to tenaciously follow this as Americans given the onslaught of information we are diving into — that’s what the year ahead is going to look like.
Truly, we have no idea how it ends. In some ways, I think as journalists, that’s exciting. But as an American who’s used to institutions and the integrity of those institutions, it is also terrifying.
Trump tweets for first time since Jan. 6, 2021
Twitter banned Trump shortly after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. The company's new CEO, Elon Musk, reinstated his account in November 2022, but Trump hasn't tweeted ... until now.
You'll never guess what his first tweet was about. Well, maybe you will.
Trump is selling a T-shirt with his mug shot because of course he is
Yes, really.
It is a plain white T-shirt with his mug shot and the words “No Surrender.”
It costs $34 to purchase.
It is being sold through his Save America Joint Fundraising Committee.
No, I am not linking to it.
While Trump was getting photographed, here’s what Biden was up to
Current U.S. President Joe Biden has consistently avoided commenting on his likely 2024 election opponent’s indictments, and he continued that approach Thursday night:
Marjorie Taylor Greene still does not know what ‘communism’ is
I’m starting to get the feeling that the congresswoman from Georgia has never read “Das Kapital,” let alone the “Communist Manifesto.” Because I can assure you, the mug shot of a former president, taken as he is processed by a criminal justice system set up in a democratic state does not fit into any definition of “communism” that I’ve ever seen.
These 7 defendants have until noon tomorrow to surrender
With Trump’s booking, that makes 12 of the 19 co-defendants named in the Fulton County indictment who have surrendered for processing. The other seven now have a little over 12 hours to do so before warrants are issued for their arrest. Here’s who’s left:
Rachel Maddow: Do not take this mug shot lightly
On tarmac, Trump trots out same old false equivalence
Speaking at Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, after being booked in the Fulton County jail, Trump repeated what’s been the go-to defense for him and his supporters.
“When you challenge an election you should be able to challenge an election," he said, adding: "And I should have every right to do that. As you know, you have many people that you’ve been watching over the years do the same thing, whether it’s Hillary Clinton or Stacey Abrams or many others.”
Of course, neither Clinton nor Abrams nor anyone else in modern American history has sought to overturn the Electoral College. No one else has encouraged officials to create alternate slates of so-called fake electors. No one else has asked the governor of a state to “find 11,780 votes.” No one else pressured a vice president to intervene in the electoral vote count. And no one else encouraged his supporters to come to Washington the day of the count and then sat on his hands for hours after they invaded the Capitol.
Other than those and many other differences, though, it’s “the same thing.”
Here's Trump's mug shot
The Fulton County Sheriff's Office has released Trump's mug shot.
Yikes: There was a bomb threat at the Fulton County courthouse
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to NBC News that there was a bomb threat called in against the county courthouse this evening. It doesn’t seem like there’s been anything found, but still a major yikes given the other threats against judges and the like we’ve seen in recent weeks. (And it’s worth noting that Trump was at the county jail today, not the courthouse.)