It was a motorcade that recalled the highly protected trips Donald Trump took when he was the president of the United States. The streets had been cleared for his easy passage, law enforcement on motorcycles made sure he was safe, and the area where Trump was visiting was locked down hours before he arrived.
But this was no rally, no presidential speech. Trump was taking a grim trip – albeit one more luxurious than most in his position – to a notoriously run-down Fulton County jail, where he was formally put under arrest for more than a dozen charges that could land him behind bars for many years if he is convicted.
Most candidates would not want images of themselves being forced to appear at a jail and processed on racketeering charges. In an earlier era not so long ago, it would have spelled the end of a political campaign.
But for Trump, a man who spent his career slapping his name on everything from hotels to steaks and vodka, and who delighted in having his name in the New York City gossip columns, even the indignity of being treated like a common criminal wasn't enough to evoke the slightest embarrassment.
"From a bottom-line business perspective,” Trump wrote in his book "The Art of the Deal," referring to a controversy during the building of Trump Tower, “bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all.”
Trump's surrender Thursday was hardly designed to avoid publicity. The former president was given two weeks – with a deadline of noon Friday – to show up at the Fulton County jail for processing on more than a dozen charges related to a scheme to steal the presidential election in Georgia.
He could have come at any time in a 24-hour period. He chose to arrive at prime-time viewing hours, when much of the country would be home from work and able to watch his arrival on TV.
It wasn't the first time – by a long shot – that Trump has been in a legal conflict, and it wasn't even the first time he was indicted. But the former president's processing at a decrepit Fulton County jail Thursday brought him closest to being treated like a common criminal defendant.
It was a rare example of Trump not being somewhere largely on his own terms. He had a deadline to appear in person or face a warrant for his arrest. He had to endure the typical indignities of lesser-known accused criminals, including having law enforcement take a photo of one of the most recognizable faces in the country.
In his three previous indictments – two federal sets of charges and one in New York City, brought by the local district attorney – Trump has been given a lot more leeway.
He has had to appear in court but has not been forced in those three cases to go through the usual processing – although he has found reason to complain about his treatment, reportedly getting rankled when a federal judge during an arraignment in Washington addressed him as “Mr. Trump” after his lawyers introduced him as “President Trump.”
But while Trump's defenders say he is the victim of a two-tiered system of justice, the former president has still enjoyed special status – not just as a high-profile defendant but as a wealthy one, legal experts say.
Trump wasn't asked to turn in his passport or agree to a range of pre-trial demands often put on defendants (such as not using alcohol or drugs). He's not been told not to leave the state.
The former president hasn't had to endure the humiliation of the "perp walk" – where prosecutors build public support for a case by parading handcuffed defendants in a walk to the courthouse. Notably, the practice was elevated by one-time federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, who is now among Trump's 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case and who is free on $150,000 bond.
This booking photo provided by Fulton County Sheriff's Office, shows former President Donald Trump on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, after he surrendered and was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. Trump is accused by District Attorney Fani Willis of scheming to subvert the will of Georgia voters in a desperate bid to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. (Fulton County Sheriff's Office via AP)Uncredited
Nor has Trump been handcuffed or jailed while awaiting posting of bail, as many defendants are. And the very fact that Trump has the resources to post bond separates him from the majority of defendants, notes Russell Gold, a University of Alabama School of Law professor who is an expert on civil and criminal procedure.
"Pre-trial detention has been the place where his treatment is somewhat exceptional," says Gold, and allows him more leeway in his case. In many cases, even innocent defendants agree to plead guilty because they can't afford bail, and so agree to a plea of time served, he says. Spending time in jail, even for an innocent defendant, can cause life-changing consequences such as the loss of a job or custody of children. Detained defendants also have a harder time meeting with lawyers to prepare their cases, Gold notes.
Between 1970 and 2015, the number of people who have been detained prior to trial increased 433% – and pre-trial detainees are the larger proportion of all incarcerated individuals, according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Six out of 10 defendants are behind bars before trial simply because they can't afford bail, the commission found – a problem the wealthy former president, who has raised millions for his defense, does not have.
Once at the courthouse, the Trump processing went quickly – another experience atypical for the typical defendant, says Atlanta-based attorney Chris Timmons, who was a Georgia county prosecutor for 17 years before entering private practice.
In one case, where he was defending someone in information technology, it took three hours to get him booked, Timmons said, as law enforcement searched for paperwork.
Trump has also been given more notice, and an ability to surrender on his own schedule, says Jarrett Wolf, a former prosecutor and former Drug Enforcement Agency special agent now in private legal practice in Miami. "He wasn't arrested at 6 in the morning," as is often done with people charged with crimes, Wolf says.
The former president also knew about the investigations of his behavior and was given a heads-up that charges were coming.
"It's unusual to have a warning that the government is investigating you," Gold says.
Trump's legal team has cited the massive trove of documents handed over to them as a reason to delay the federal trial on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection until April 2026. But it's unusual for a defendant to be given papers and evidence by the prosecution at such an early stage, Gold says – another advantage Trump has over typical defendants.
Trump, however, isn't acting like a typical defendant, either. Instead of trying to keep his legal problems private – or walking into a courthouse or jail with his jacket pulled over his face – the former president is reveling in the attention, which riles up his political base and feeds his contention that he is being persecuted for political reasons.
"I think there is a sort of political logic in his mind here, the argument that he is being targeted by the liberal state," says David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College. "So I think rather than act like he is ashamed of it – which I don't think he is, anyway – the strategy is to court the attention and to frame yourself as if the attacks you are experiencing are symbolic of the attacks on your supporters."
That approach seems to be working for the former president, so far: A Des Moines Register/NBC poll this week found that support for Trump among Iowa Republicans hardened after the Georgia indictments. Before the Fulton County charges, 55% of Iowa Republicans favored or were “actively considering Trump." After the fourth indictment, that number went up to 67%, the poll found.
Next year, however, political rhetoric may become legal reality for Trump, who could face several trials during his campaign for president. With a daunting campaign schedule competing with court appearances, the former president may find that there is, indeed, such a thing as bad publicity.
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