Politics

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is due to surrender at a Georgia jail on Thursday to face charges he illegally tried overturn the vote in the state in the 2020 presidential election which put Joe Biden in the White House.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Trump is due to report briefly to the Fulton County jail where authorities will take a mug shot and process paperwork. He has already agreed to pay a $200,000 bond and not send threatening social media messages as he awaits trial.

He will need to report later — likely in early September — to court to enter a formal plea to the charges.

HOW FAR OFF IS A TRIAL?

Trump is known for using the courts to draw out cases, and the prosecution could be further slowed by novel legal questions stemming from the unprecedented nature of the case.

Legal experts said a delay could benefit the former president, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the Nov. 5, 2024, presidential election.

Trump has claimed without evidence that the prosecution is motivated by political bias.

Trump may try to move it to another part of the state, arguing the jury pool in Fulton County, which Biden won with about 73% of the vote, would be biased against him.

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE CASE GOES TO TRIAL?

The process of selecting a jury could be lengthy, given the passionate views many people have of the former president and the amount of time jurors would have to dedicate to the trial. In the ongoing trial in Atlanta of rapper Young Thug, or Jeffery Lamar Williams, jury selection has run for months.

A jury of 12 people from Fulton County must all agree beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump is guilty for a conviction on any count. If the jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the judge can declare a mistrial.

If Trump is convicted, he would likely seek a new trial by asserting the outcome was inconsistent with evidence or contrary to the law.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Alistair Bell)

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By Jack Queen

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Donald Trump is set to surrender at an Atlanta jail on Thursday, a week after the Republican former U.S. president was indicted in Georgia over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Here is a look at the conditions of his bail:

NO THREATS

The $200,000 bond package to which Trump agreed on Monday includes standard provisions barring him from making direct or indirect threats against witnesses or his 18 co-defendants in the case, which concerns his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

This applies to posts and reposts on social media, including Trump’s own platform Truth Social, which he routinely uses to attack the legitimacy of the four criminal cases against him and the prosecutors who brought them.

Trump is also barred from talking directly or indirectly about the case with co-defendants or potential witnesses unless lawyers are present.

WHAT IF TRUMP VIOLATES THE AGREEMENT?

Judges in Georgia rarely revoke bail and would be extremely unlikely to do so over social media posts or inflammatory statements on the campaign trail, according to legal experts. Trump is seeking the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 U.S. election.

The optics of jailing Trump as he campaigns to regain the presidency would be viewed by supporters as an affront to his free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and fuel his narrative that the case is politically motivated, according to these experts.

Judge Scott McAfee does have the power to jail Trump if he crosses the line, and defendants sometimes have their bail revoked for egregious acts of witness tampering.

HAS TRUMP ADHERED TO BAIL TERMS IN OTHER CASES?

Trump has been indicted in three additional cases in Washington, D.C., Florida and New York. He has pleaded not guilty in all of them.

His social media postings have become a point of contention in the Washington case in which he is also charged with election subversion. Prosecutors told a judge that they were concerned Trump might be intimidating witnesses with a post saying: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted a prosecution request for a protective order barring Trump from disclosing sensitive evidence and grand jury information. Such orders are typical in criminal cases. But prosecutors said Trump’s posts were a particular cause for concern.

Trump’s bond bars him from discussing the facts of the case with potential witnesses without lawyers present. Unlike in Georgia, it does not explicitly restrict his social media posts.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Will Dunham)

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By Jack Queen

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Donald Trump is due to report to an Atlanta jail on Thursday to face charges stemming from his effort to overturn his 2020 election loss, in the fourth criminal case to hit the former president this year.

Like other criminal defendants in Atlanta, Trump will have to appear at the Fulton County Jail to be fingerprinted and photographed – a mug shot that is certain to be widely circulated by backers and detractors alike as he campaigns to win back the White House in a November 2024 election.

The Republican former president faces 13 felony counts including racketeering, which is typically used to target organized crime, for pressuring state officials to reverse his election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Trump, 77, has denied wrongdoing and attacked the case as politically motivated. He will not enter a plea at this appearance. He has agreed to post $200,000 bond and accepted bail conditions that would bar him from threatening witnesses or his 18 co-defendants in the case.

It was unclear when Trump would arrive at the facility, which has a reputation for grim conditions that have inspired rap songs and prompted an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

It was also unclear how many supporters would show up in the sweltering heat to support him. Trump called for nationwide protests after his first criminal indictment in New York in March, prompting fears of violent unrest along the lines of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Authorities have reported no violent incidents outside the courthouses in Manhattan, Miami and Washington where he has been arraigned this year.

Trump’s brief jailhouse visit comes one day after his rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination met in Milwaukee for their initial debate. Trump skipped that event, instead sitting for a pre-taped interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I’ve been indicted four times – all trivial nonsense,” he said.

Trump’s lead in opinion polls has widened since his first indictment, and his supporters say they believe the charges are politically motivated. But analysts say Trump’s legal woes could alienate the independent voters he would need to win in a general-election matchup with Biden, the incumbent who defeated him by 7 million votes in 2020.

91 PROBLEMS

Trump, the first former U.S. president to be charged with crimes, faces 91 separate criminal counts overall.

He has been charged in Washington, D.C., over his efforts to overturn the election, in Florida over his handling of classified documents upon leaving office, and in New York over a hush money payment to a porn star.

In Georgia, Trump is accused of pressuring state officials and setting up a slate of illegitimate electors to reverse his 2020 defeat.

Trump claims he won the 2020 election and has assailed all four cases as politically motivated. He is due to enter a plea in the Georgia case on Sept. 5 and has pleaded not guilty in the other three cases.

Nine of Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case, including his former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, have surrendered to authorities. The remaining eight face a Friday deadline to comply or face arrest.

(Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Howard Goller)

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By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Eight contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination jockeyed for voters’ attention on Wednesday at the party’s first debate, while the front-runner Donald Trump, the former president, bypassed the event.

Here are four takeaways from the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:

NO BREAKOUT MOMENT FOR DESANTIS?

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stood at center stage, but he wasn’t at the center of the evening.

No candidate came into the debate facing more pressure than DeSantis. For weeks, his poll numbers have been sliding and the gap with Trump widening, jeopardizing his argument that he is voters’ preferred alternative to Trump.

But for much of the night, DeSantis, 44, stood and watched as his rivals seized the spotlight.

His fellow candidates threw few attacks his way, something that came as a surprise. Whether that was a sign that they weren’t threatened by his flagging candidacy or that they had other priorities was unclear.

Before the debate, DeSantis’ campaign told Reuters that all he needed to do was “hold serve” and stay steady – that he didn’t need a game-changing moment to reverse his downward momentum. The pressure was on the rest of the field to break out of single digits in national polls, an aide said.

It remains to be seen however whether DeSantis made a strong enough case to voters to boost his prospects in the weeks ahead.

NEW KID IN TOWN

In his first political debate, Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, was widely expected to be a wild card. He quickly learned that fire brings fire.

Ramaswamy, a businessman with no political experience who has been rising in some opinion polls, branded his rivals as “bought and paid for.” He also referred to DeSantis as a “super PAC puppet,” a dig at the deep-pocketed political action committee supporting his bid.

Mike Pence, 64, defending his four-year record as Trump’s vice president, tried to cut Ramaswamy down to size. “We don’t need to bring in a rookie, we don’t need to bring in people without experience,” Pence said.

Pence’s problem? There seemed to be more supporters of the outsider Ramaswamy in the audience than for Pence, illustrating the difficulty his candidacy has had mustering traction. His critique brought forth a cascade of boos.

That didn’t stop Christie, 60, who tried to finish Ramaswamy off much as he famously took down Senator Marco Rubio during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“I’ve had enough, already tonight, of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” Christie said.

Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, assailed Ramaswamy’s lack of foreign policy experience after he said he would not support the U.S. role in Ukraine.

“He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel,” Haley said. “You don’t do that to friends.”

‘ELEPHANT NOT IN THE ROOM’

Trump skipped the debate for a pre-recorded interview with conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, as the debate began.

His absence from the stage gave the debate the feel of an undercard in boxing, with the winner seeking a shot at the champ. Come Thursday, he is likely to wipe the debate from the news cycle when he turns himself in at a Georgia courthouse on racketeering charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Debate moderator Bret Baier of Fox News on Wednesday called Trump “the elephant not in the room.”

As the debate entered its second hour, the candidates on stage were asked about Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

By and large, they fell into predictable patterns. Pence defended certifying the electoral vote in the U.S. Congress despite pressure from Trump. Christie, Trump’s most persistent critic, said his conduct was beneath “the office of president.” DeSantis argued the party needed to focus on the future.

Trump had a fierce defender in Ramaswamy, who called him “the best president of the 21st century” and vowed to pardon him if he is convicted of federal crimes.

Haley spoke to the millions of Republicans watching at home.

“We have to look at the fact that three quarters of Americans don’t want a rematch between Trump and Biden,” said Haley, 51. “And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can’t win a general election that way.”

ANGST OVER ABORTION

The debate found the candidates grappling with the best way to approach abortion as a political issue. While most on stage support restrictions in some form, the issue has proven to be a profound vulnerability for the party in recent general elections.

Haley, who said she was strongly anti-abortion, seemed to try to find a better way to speak to moderate voters on the topic.

“Can’t we all agree that we’re not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?” said Haley, the only woman on the debate stage. “Let’s treat this like a respectful issue that it is and humanize the situation and stop demonizing that situation.”

DeSantis was pressed on his support for Florida’s six-week abortion ban, which he signed into law in April, a move some wealthy supporters found too extreme.

Asked if he would support a six-week federal ban, DeSantis was evasive, suggesting it was an issue that would be best left to the states but also saying he would support “the cause of life.”

Pence accused Haley of being too soft on the issue.

“Consensus is the opposite of leadership,” he told her. “It’s not a states-only issue. It’s a moral issue.”

Haley countered by saying Pence wasn’t being honest with voters. She argued there would not be enough support in Congress for a federal ban.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)

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By Nathan Layne and Gram Slattery

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (Reuters) -Republicans seeking their party’s 2024 U.S. presidential nomination are expected to train their rhetorical fire on Ron DeSantis at their first debate on Wednesday, after front-runner Donald Trump opted to skip the event.

The Florida governor is among eight Republican hopefuls set to be on stage at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee with one glaring exception. The former president, who holds a strong lead in opinion polls, instead sat for a pre-recorded interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, due to air at 9 p.m. ET (0100 GMT) just as the debate begins, potentially siphoning off viewers.

With Trump absent, Republican candidates including tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamay and U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who have enjoyed a bump in some state and national polls in recent weeks, will be looking to displace DeSantis as the most plausible Trump alternative.

“He’s going to be a punching bag,” said Brian Darling, a Republican strategist and former senior aide to U.S. Senator Rand Paul. “DeSantis is considered a wounded candidate going the wrong way.”

DeSantis, for his part, will be looking to draw a line under a slow but steady slide in the polls this summer. Aides and allies view the debate as an opportunity to introduce the governor to millions of voters who have yet to tune into the primary process and to shift the narrative away from turmoil that has gripped his campaign in recent weeks, including a significant staffing shake-up.

“From the campaign’s perspective, he’s going to be center stage. Everyone on stage is going to be shooting at him,” said one person close to DeSantis, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal campaign dynamics. “He doesn’t need a knockout blow, but he’s got to take advantage of the opportunity of all this airtime.”

Martha MacCallum, a Fox News host who will moderate the debate alongside colleague Bret Baier, indicated in an interview with Vanity Fair last week that they will press the candidates to address Trump’s four criminal indictments.

The candidates are also expected to use the debate to criticize China, which most have described as the United States’ top economic and geopolitical foe. Former UN Ambassador and presidential candidate Nikki Haley said in an interview with The Washington Post that she would send troops to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China.

WARY OF TARGETING TRUMP

The debate, four months before the first Republican presidential nominating contest in Iowa, will be held a day before Trump plans to surrender in Atlanta to face charges he sought to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. That timing will allow him to grab the spotlight at a time when his rivals are hoping to raise their profiles

Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump campaign advisor, predicted that the candidates would spend a significant amount of time discussing the former president and dismissed the debate as a “audition” to be Trump’s vice president.

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, an ex-Trump ally turned critic, will likely amplify his attacks on the former president. Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and former Vice President Mike Pence, who broke with Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, may also take shots at the former president.

But Jeanette Hoffman, a Republican political consultant, said the other candidates will likely refrain from criticizing Trump for fear of upsetting his supporters, whose votes they would need to win the Republican nomination. Polls show that most Republicans view the criminal charges against Trump as politically motivated, making the topic a tricky one to navigate for his rivals.

“He’s still in the room because every Republican primary candidate is going to have to take a position on the former president and his legal troubles,” Hoffman said. “It’s a bit of a Catch-22 for some candidates. They don’t want Trump to be the candidate but they also can’t be the one to take him out.”

The expected eight participants include Scott, Ramaswamy, and Haley in addition to DeSantis, Christie, Hutchinson and Pence.

It was unclear whether North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum would be able to stand for the debate, after he injured his leg playing basketball, spokesperson Lance Trover said.

In the most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll released this month, Trump held 47% of the Republican vote nationally, with DeSantis dropping six percentage points from July to 13%. None of the other candidates have broken out of single digits.

Both Darling and Hoffman said they saw the potential for Ramaswamy, a skilled orator who has climbed into the third spot in several national polls, to gain ground. Ramaswamy’s policy positions are mostly deeply conservative and he has been a staunch supporter of Trump.

The DeSantis campaign is anticipating particularly harsh broadsides from Ramaswamy and Christie, a person close to the governor said.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Milwaukee, additional reporting by Gram Slattery and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

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By Jack Queen

ATLANTA (Reuters) -Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani surrendered on Wednesday at an Atlanta jail to face state charges arising from actions he was accused of taking to overturn the former U.S. president’s 2020 election loss.

Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor, was ordered to pay a $150,000 bond and not to intimidate any of his 18 co-defendants or witnesses in the case, according to court papers.

“This indictment is a travesty,” Giuliani told reporters after his jail appearance. “This is an assault on the Constitution.”

Eight other of Trump’s co-defendants in the criminal case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis accusing him and his associates of trying to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia also have surrendered, according to county records.

Trump was set to turn himself in on Thursday to face his fourth criminal indictment this year. The remaining 10 co-defendants named in the Georgia indictment have until Friday to surrender. Trump has called his four indictments politically motivated.

The front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump continues to make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud. Giuliani played a prominent public role in the Trump campaign’s efforts to push these false claims.

In the Georgia case, Giuliani was accused of making numerous false statements about election fraud, including to officials in other states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, in a failed bid to convince them to approve an alternative slate of electors in the formal congressional certification of the election results to keep Trump in power.

Giuliani and other Trump allies were also accused of making false statements to Georgia lawmakers about the election.

Four co-defendants also surrendered at the jail on Wednesday, according to records posted on the Fulton County sheriff’s office website. They were attorneys Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Ray Smith, all of whom were charged with playing a role in the attempt to overturn Trump’s defeat.

On Tuesday, Trump’s former lawyer John Eastman and Republican poll watcher Scott Hall surrendered while former Georgia Republican Party leaders Cathy Latham and David Shafer – were booked overnight, according to the jail.

Shafer, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark have filed petitions to have their cases moved to federal court.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to two sets of federal criminal charges brought by Jack Smith, a special counsel named by Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, concerning the efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his possession of classified documents after leaving office. Trump also pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan case involving hush money paid before the 2016 election to a porn star.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in Atlanta, Susan Heavey and Jacqueline Thomsen in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Will Dunham)

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(Reuters) – Attorney Sidney Powell, one of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 18 co-defendants in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case, surrendered to Fulton County authorities on Wednesday, according to records posted on county sheriff’s website.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil; writing by Susan Heavey)

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ATLANTA (Reuters) – The first of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia’s criminal case accusing the former U.S. president and his associates of subverting his 2020 election loss surrendered at an Atlanta jail on Tuesday, according to county records and a statement.

Trump’s former lawyer John Eastman and Republican poll watcher Scott Hall both surrendered to the county sheriff’s office, two days before Trump himself was set to turn himself in to face his fourth criminal indictment this year.

Trump, the front-runner for the Republican 2024 White House nomination, has lambasted all the prosecutions as politically motivated and continues to claim falsely that his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of fraud.

Eastman said in a statement he would surrender, the day after agreeing to a $100,000 bond agreement.

“I am here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought,” Eastman said in the statement. “It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”

Hall, a Republican poll watcher in Georgia’s Fulton County, was booked by the county’s sheriff’s office on Tuesday and has not yet been released, the jail records showed.

Hall previously agreed to a $10,000 bond deal requiring that he report to pre-trial supervision every 30 days.

Trump on Monday agreed to post a $200,000 bond and accepted bail conditions that would bar him from threatening co-defendants or witnesses in the case.

In a 41-count Georgia indictment unveiled last week, Trump and 18 other defendants were charged with racketeering and other crimes over their efforts to reverse Trump’s loss in the state to Biden.

Prosecutors are seeking a trial in March, but the number of defendants and complexity of the case could lead to delays.

Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, sought last week to move the case to federal court and dismiss it on the grounds he is immune from prosecution for actions he took as a federal official.

Meadows asked to delay his surrender until after a hearing in federal court on Monday but was rebuffed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who told his lawyers she will seek his arrest if he does not turn himself in by Friday afternoon, court records showed.

Trump and the rest of the defendants are likely to raise similar arguments, which could cause delays as their lawyers spar with prosecutors in pretrial litigation.

Trump faces indictments in three other separate criminal cases.

He has been charged in Washington, D.C., over his efforts to overturn the election, in Florida over his handling of classified documents upon leaving office, and in New York over a hush money payment to a porn star.

(Reporting by Jack Queen in Atlanta, additional reporting by Jasper Ward and Susan Heavey; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden named former federal prosecutor and Chicago lawyer Ed Siskel as his top White House lawyer on Tuesday, saying the former White House deputy counsel would start his new post next month.

Siskel served in the White House Counsel’s office for nearly four years when Biden was vice president under former President Barack Obama, including as deputy counsel, the White House said in a statement.

“For nearly four years in the White House when I was vice president, he helped the Counsel’s Office navigate complex challenges and advance the president’s agenda on behalf of the American people,” Biden wrote. “His experience will let him hit the ground running as a key leader on my team.”

The appointment comes as Biden seeks to advance his legislative agenda and faces ongoing Republican-led congressional investigations.

U.S. House Republicans have sought to escalate their probes into the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter, and some right-wing lawmakers have sought an impeachment investigation into the president.

A Chicago native, Siskel returned to the Midwest after leaving the Obama administration for stints in private practice as well as a two-year post as counsel for Chicago under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, according to the statement.

As the top lawyer for the nation’s third-largest city, he sued the Trump administration in 2017 over its so-called sanctuary city policy.

Before working under Obama, he served in the U.S. Department of Justice as senior counsel to the deputy attorney general and then as associate deputy attorney general. He previously was a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois and was a clerk for then-Justice John Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court, the White House said.

Siskel replaces Stuart Delery, who is stepping down after serving as White House counsel since July 2022.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Trump lawyer John Eastman said on Tuesday that he was surrendering in Georgia on Tuesday after he was indicted for involvement in attempts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss.

“I am here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought. It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances,” Eastman said in a statement.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Katharine Jackson)

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