First of Trump’s co-defendants turns himself in to Fulton county jail
Scott Hall, one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case, has turned himself in to the Fulton county jail, according to the jail’s online database.
A Georgia bail bondsman and Trump supporter, Hall is charged with illegally seeking access to voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, to search for evidence they were rigged.
Key events
Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman who surrendered to the Fulton county jail, had reached a bond agreement with Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis after he was charged with racketeering and six criminal conspiracy counts relating to a scheme to access voting machines and data in rural Coffee county.
In a “consent bond order” listed on the Fulton county court website on Monday, Hall agreed to a $10,000 bond, that he will “report to pre-trial supervision every 30 days” and that is barred from communicating with the other 18 defendants in the case.
Hall, Cathy Latham and Misty Hampton “aided, abetted, and encouraged” employees from the data solutions firm SullivanStrickler to access voting equipment inside the Coffee county board of elections registration office, according to the indictment handed down by Willis.
First of Trump’s co-defendants turns himself in to Fulton county jail
Scott Hall, one of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia case, has turned himself in to the Fulton county jail, according to the jail’s online database.
A Georgia bail bondsman and Trump supporter, Hall is charged with illegally seeking access to voting machines in Coffee county, Georgia, to search for evidence they were rigged.
Martin Pengelly
Donald Trump’s decision to spurn the debate on Fox News in favor of an online interview with Tucker Carlson marks a new level of hostility with the network.
The sit-down with Carlson would be particularly bruising for Fox given Carlson is still on contract and being paid by the network, despite having his show taken off the air after the network settled, for $787m, a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over 2020 election denial claims.
Fox News executives and hosts have reportedly been begging Trump to take part in the debate. Last month, the Fox News president, Jay Wallace, and CEO, Suzanne Scott, went to Bedminster to convince Trump to attend, and came away thinking he could still participate.
But Trump has been openly attacking Fox News since the launch of his presidential campaign, in part because of its positive coverage of his 2024 rival and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and has privately lashed out at the Fox Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch.
Donald Trump says he will surrender to Fulton county authorities on Thursday
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.
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.
Eight candidates qualify for first Republican primary debate
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Eight Republicans have officially qualified for the party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate, the Republican national committee announced on Monday night.
The eight candidates scheduled to appear on the debate stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night are: Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, the former vice-president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, North Dakota’s governor Doug Burgum, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina senator Tim Scott.
Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in national and early state polls, will not be there. Instead, the former president sat down for an interview with the former Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, that is expected to be used as counter programming in an attempt to upstage the opening event in the party’s nominating contest.
Without Trump, much of the attention is expected to fall on his closest rival Ron DeSantis, who has polled consistently in second place but has remained stagnant while Trump’s lead has grown. The Florida governor will likely withstand the bulk of attacks on the debate stage as he hopes to re-establish himself as the main contender to Trump and give his campaign a much-needed boost.
Meanwhile, Trump said 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.
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.
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, and proposed that arraignments for the defendants follow during the week of 5 September. Willis 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.
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