Former President Donald Trump says he will surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday to face charges in the case accusing him of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED,” Trump wrote on his social media network on Monday night, hours after court papers said his bond was set at $200,000.
The Fulton county sheriff’s office said in a news release on Monday afternoon that when Trump surrenders there will be a “hard lockdown” of the area surrounding the main county jail.
In a court document posted online on Monday, bond amounts for the 13 charges against the former president ranged from $10,000, for counts including criminal conspiracy and filing false documents, to $80,000, for a violation of the Georgia Rico Act, often used against organised crime.
Terms included a prohibition of “act[ing] to intimidate any person known to … be a codefendant or witness in this case”, including in “posts on social media”.
Authorities in Georgia are investigating threats made to grand jurors.
The bond document also said Trump “shall not communicate in any way, directly or indirectly, about the facts of this case with any person known to him to be a codefendant in this case except through his or her counsel”.
The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday for Trump and his 18 co-defendants to turn themselves in to be booked. The prosecutor has proposed that arraignments for the defendants follow during the week of 5 September. She has said she wants to try the defendants collectively, and bring the case to trial in March of next year, which would put it in the heat of the presidential nominating season.
In Fulton county, when defendants are not in custody, their lawyers and the district attorney’s office will often work out a bond amount before arraignment and the judge will sign off on it. The defendants will generally be booked at the Fulton county jail. During the booking process, they are typically photographed and fingerprinted and then they provide certain personal information. Since Trump’s bond has already been set, he will be released from custody once the booking process is complete.
John Eastman, a law professor who advised Trump in his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, saw bond set at $100,000. Defendants also include the former New York mayor and Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani.
The document concerning Trump’s bond was signed by Scott McAfee, a superior court judge, three Trump lawyers and Willis, who last week secured indictments of Trump and 18 aides and allies.
Trump denies wrongdoing in Georgia and in three other indictments which have produced a total of 91 criminal charges.
The charges cover federal and state election subversion in 2020, the retention of classified information after leaving office, and hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election.
Despite such unprecedented legal jeopardy – to which can be added civil investigations of Trump’s business affairs and a defamation case in which a judge said Trump was adjudicated a rapist – the former president dominates the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Ahead of the first debate on Wednesday, which Trump will not attend, he leads his nearest challenger, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, by about 40 points in national polling averages and by wide margins in key states.
On social media on Monday, some observers doubted that Trump, notorious for attacking enemies on social media (which he did the same day, aiming at the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp), would abide by the terms of his bond.
“Barring a real come-to-Jesus moment,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State law professor, “the only way Trump doesn’t violate his … conditions is if his lawyers confiscate his phone.”
Others noted how Trump has leveraged his predicament to fund his campaign to return to the White House, widely seen as his best hope of avoiding prison.
Ron Filipkowski, a Florida attorney turned viral Trump critic, said it was “time to shake down the donors”.
