The last of 18 co-defendants of Donald Trump surrendered at an Atlanta jail on Friday morning, a day after the former president himself was booked there in the Georgia election interference criminal case.
Stephen Lee, an Illinois police chaplain, surrendered at the Fulton County Jail by 11 a.m. ET, an hour before the noon deadline set in the case.
Trump turned himself in Thursday evening at the same jail and was quickly released on $200,000 bond after being processed for 13 felony counts.
That included being photographed for his mugshot, the first ever for an ex-U.S. president to be publicly released.
Trump then flew home to New Jersey, and gave an interview to Newsmax where he said getting his mugshot taken was a “terrible experience.”
“It is not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong,” said Trump, whose 2024 Republican presidential campaign quickly began selling merchandise featuring his mugshot to raise money.
Within hours, co-defendants Jeffrey Clark, Emily Hayes, Michael Roman, Shawn Still and Robert Cheeley had surrendered at the jail, records show. A sixth defendant, Trevian Kutti, turned herself in hours after that.
Lee followed suit soon after.
Both Lee and Kutti, a former publicist for Kanye West, are accused of trying to influence the testimony of Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County poll worker.
All of the 19 defendants were charged on Aug. 14 in an indictment accusing them of participating in a broad criminal conspiracy that attempted to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia to President Joe Biden.
Trump separately is charged in a federal criminal case with attempting to reverse his defeat in the national election.
Clark is a former Department of Justice official whom Trump considered installing as attorney general in late 2020 as he promoted the false idea that the DOJ had identified “significant concerns” about purported ballot fraud in Georgia and other swing states won by Biden. Clark, who faces two felony counts, is seeking to have his case transferred to federal court.
Cheeley, a Georgia lawyer, is charged with 10 felony counts.
Roman, who was an official in Trump’s campaign, is charged with seven felonies. He was involved in organizing people in Georgia and other swing states to present themselves as legitimate Electoral College members for Trump.
Still, a Georgia state senator charged with seven counts, was one of 16 so-called fake electors for Trump who claimed he had won in Georgia. In the Electoral College, which determines who wins the presidency, only a candidate who has won a state gets all of their electors.
Hayes, who is also known as Misty Hampton, is a former election supervisor in Coffey County, Georgia. She faces seven felony counts.
— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger
Read the full article here
