ATLANTA – Former president Donald Trump is expected to surrender and then be released at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta on Thursday in connection with his attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia.
Trump on Aug. 14 was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s anti-racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.
The sheriff has said Trump’s processing will be like any other – with a mug shot. Trump’s 18 co-defendants, including former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have trickled into the jail for their bookings over the past few days.
Hours before his expected surrender, Trump appeared to be shaking up his Georgia-based legal team.
Steven Sadow, a prominent Atlanta criminal defense attorney, filed notice in Fulton County Superior Court that he is now representing Trump in the matter as his lead counsel.
Trump has been represented by a trio of other attorneys – Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg and Jennifer Little – who had spent recent months trying to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) and her office from prosecuting the former president and quash evidence gathered by a special purpose grand jury.
On Monday, Findling, Goldberg and Little negotiated Trump’s $200,000 consent bond and signed a document outlining his release conditions. But they had yet not filed formal notice in the docket as Trump’s representatives in the case.
Findling, a prominent Atlanta criminal defense attorney, is known locally as the “billion-dollar lawyer,” a nickname linked to his roster of prominent hip-hop clients, including Cardi B, a roster that he has handled with Goldberg, his law partner. They joined Jennifer Little, a former Atlanta-area prosecutor, on the case about a year ago.
Sadow, Findling, Goldberg and Little did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sadow, whose website describes him as a “special counsel for white collar and high-profile defense,” is well known in Atlanta legal circles. His prominent clients include rap artists Rick Ross and T.I., singer Usher and former NFL player Ray Lewis.
Most recently, Sadow represented hip-hop star Gunna in another sprawling criminal racketeering case involving the rapper Young Thug. That case is also being prosecuted by Willis’s office and is expected to go to trial in the coming months. Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens, reached a plea deal in the case.
Like Findling, Sadow has been a critic of Georgia’s anti-racketeering statute, which is far broader than federal law.
By 8 a.m. Thursday – long before Trump was expected to appear – about 50 members of the media and about as many Trump supporters had gathered near the jail, with some utilizing overflow parking.
Bonnie Harmon, 60, a retired mental health technician from Philadelphia, said she drove Wednesday night and arrived at the jail by 4 a.m.
“I’m a die-hard Trump person. I’m here to support Trump,” she said.
Harmon gathered with more than a dozen people sporting “Blacks for Trump” T-shirts.
Asked if she thought Trump won the 2020 election, Harmon said, “I’m sure he has proof.”
Trump is the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. He has been indicted in four cases – all while leading the Republican field in the 2024 presidential nomination race. He has denied wrongdoing in each case.
When he surrenders, the former president will be required to post a $200,000 bond to be released – a first among his four indictments this year.
The bond agreement, known as a consent bond order, sets strict rules for Trump’s release. The former president is not allowed to communicate with witnesses or co-defendants about the case, except through his lawyers, and he is barred from intimidating witnesses or co-defendants. He is also forbidden from making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community,” including in “posts on social media or reposts of posts” by others on social media.
Trump’s $200,000 bond is the highest known amount among the 19 co-defendants charged in the Fulton County case. Rudy Giuliani, a former Trump attorney and former mayor of New York City, posted a $150,000 bond Wednesday, while former Trump lawyers John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis were each required to post a $100,000 bond.
Trump skipped the first Republican presidential debate Wednesday night in Milwaukee, where most of the eight candidates onstage signaled they would support him even if he is convicted of criminal charges.
Giuliani, who rose to prominence decades ago as a crime-fighting federal prosecutor and the mayor of New York, turned himself in Wednesday on charges that he and Trump oversaw a vast conspiracy to illegally keep Trump in power after the 2020 election.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Holly Bailey, Ben Brasch, Amy Gardner, Allison Salerno, Amy B Wang
