A new legal episode against Donald Trump. The former US president confirmed Monday evening that he will travel to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday (August 24th) to appear in court for the first time, which will try him later on his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. in this state in the southeastern United States.
“I will be going to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday to be ARRESTED by an EXTREME LEFT prosecutor,” the billionaire Republican denounced on his Truth Social platform, about Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. CNN had given the date of this hearing shortly before. This is the 4th criminal case for which the former president is charged, who is again seeking the White House and remains the favorite for the Republican primaries.
Authorities had given him until noon Friday to report to the Fulton County Court Jail in Atlanta, the state capital. His appearance on Thursday will come the day after the first televised debate between the Republican primary candidates, a debate in which Donald Trump, far ahead in the polls, has decided not to participate.
A grand jury (panel of citizens with investigative powers) appointed by Fani Willis on August 14 indicted Donald Trump and 18 others for their allegedly wrongful attempts to reverse the result of the 2020 election. won in this key state by current Democratic President Joe Biden. It is she that Donald Trump is targeting in his remarks on Truth on Monday.
They are prosecuted under a law on organized crime which provides for sentences of five to twenty years in prison. For his first hearing in the case, his lawyers have agreed to post $200,000 in bail, we learned from court documents earlier in the day. Four other of his defendants also agreed to post bail ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 each.
The posting of a bail allows the defendants not to be remanded in custody, provided that they do not violate any law, abstain from any threat and do not communicate with each other other than through their lawyers. On Thursday in Atlanta, the former president may have to submit to a procedure he had escaped in the three previous indictments: taking fingerprints and taking two photos, one from the front and the other in profile.
Fani Willis has asked the court to set the start date for the trial on March 4, a judge will decide. The former president has been charged in three other cases. The justice of the State of New York accuses him of accounting fraud in a payment to an actress of porn movies during his victorious campaign of 2016.
In Florida, the federal justice indicted him for his handling deemed negligent of confidential documents. And in the capital Washington, federal justice and the same prosecutor Jack Smith, who has become his pet peeve, are suing him for his attempt, at the federal level, to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election that he lost.
After indictment in each of these three cases, Donald Trump appeared before a judge and three times pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. On Monday, he again denounced a political “witch hunt”.
