Former United States President Donald Trump has returned to the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, with a post showing his mug shot from his booking at Fulton County Jail in Georgia earlier in the day.
Trump reclaimed direct access on Thursday to the public on the platform that banned him following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Congress by his supporters.
Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s account last year soon after acquiring Twitter, which he later rebranded to X.
The mugshot released by Georgia authorities on Thursday, shows a scowling Trump just minutes after he was booked on more than a dozen felony counts at an Atlanta jail.
Trump, who is running for president in the 2024 election, has already made history as the first former US president to face criminal charges – not once but four times. This, however, was the first time he had to pose for a booking photo.
Unlike the other authorities, who gave him a pass, Georgia processed him like any other criminal defendant, including fingerprints and a mug shot.
The process took approximately 20 minutes. Afterwards, Trump quickly disappeared into a motorcade waiting outside the jail. He had been released on a $200,000 bond agreement, the highest of all his co-defendants.
https://t.co/MlIKklPSJT pic.twitter.com/Mcbf2xozsY
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2023
As he left the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump issued a brief statement to reporters, denying wrongdoing and reiterating that he had the right to challenge his defeat in the 2020 election.
“We have every right – every single right – to challenge an election that we think is dishonest,” Trump said, offering a preview of his defence strategy.
Trump’s decision to publish the photo himself was on brand, considering he has used previous indictments as a spectacle to draw attention to his political campaign and push the narrative that the authorities have unfairly targeted him.
It is a rallying cry that appears popular with his supporters, and Trump wasted little time using the mug shot for fundraising purposes, posting it on X as well as on his own social media platform, Truth Social, along with a link to his website that asked visitors for donations to his campaign.
His website says, “Today, at the notoriously violent jail in Fulton County, Georgia, I was ARRESTED despite having committed NO CRIME.”
