Defendants indicted alongside former President Donald Trump last week began to surrender at the Fulton County Jail Tuesday morning, while others were granted bond after meeting with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.
Bondsman Scott Hall and Trump campaign attorney John Eastman were the first booked Tuesday after being granted bond on Monday. Hall’s bond is set at $10,000 and Eastman’s at $100,000. Hall was released hours after being booked.
“I’m confident that when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my codefendants and I will be fully vindicated,” Eastman, released a couple of hours after being booked, told reporters outside the jail.
When asked if he still thought the 2020 election was stolen, Eastman responded, “absolutely, no question in my mind.”
He also said he had not talked to Trump and has no regrets about representing the former president. He faces nine charges including violation of the State’s RICO act.
Trump and his allies claimed tens of thousands of illegal votes were cast in Georgia and insist election night video in Fulton County showed workers counting and double-counting fraudulent ballots.
None of it was true. Election experts found Trump’s voting fraud evidence “highly inaccurate” and “worthless.” State and federal investigators found the video showed normal ballot counting. Investigators found various claims of voting fraud were false.
Evidence compiled by federal investigators suggests Trump campaign officials knew the allegations were false. But they doubled down on them anyway as they fought to keep Trump in power after his loss to President Joe Biden.
Trump, granted a $200,000 bond Monday, said in a social media post that he will surrender Thursday. After earlier spouting baseless allegations about DA Willis’ personal life and calling Atlanta “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere” when data in fact shows a decrease in violent crime, Trump has lately posted about “Radical Left Lunatics” on his social media site. He was expected to skip this week’s GOP debate in Milwaukee.
Also Tuesday, former Georgia Republican Party chairman David Shafer was granted a $75,000 bond and State Sen. Shawn Still, one of the “alternate” Republican electors, was granted a $10,000 signature bond.
Shafer oversaw a December 2020 meeting at the state Capitol of 16 GOP “alternate” electors who signed documents that falsely claimed Trump won the 2020 election. He also filed a long-shot lawsuit alongside Trump in 2020 that contested the certification of Georgia’s election.
Shafer filed a motion in federal court to move his case from Fulton County Superior Court to federal court. He is arguing that, as one of the 16 Republicans who cast an Electoral College vote for Trump in the face of Biden’s win, he was acting as a federal official. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and ex assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark also seek to have their cases moved to federal court.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Still served as one of the 16 “alternate” Republican Electoral College electors. He also sued to decertify all of Georgia’s presidential election results based on alleged problems with voting equipment in Coffee County.
Attorneys Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro were granted bond on Monday. Attorneys Jenna Ellis and Bob Cheeley, former Coffee County party leader Cathy Latham, former Trump campaign official Mike Roman and Illinois pastor Stephen Cliffgard Lee were granted bond Tuesday.
Seven defendants including Meadows and Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani had not been granted bond as of late Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday, Meadows filed an emergency motion in federal court asking for the immediate removal of his case to federal court or for an order prohibiting Willis from arresting him before an Aug. 28 hearing.
Meadows’ attorneys said in the filing they offered to meet with Willis immediately after the hearing in federal court.
“I am not granting any extensions,” Willis responded in an email. “I gave two weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. Your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. The two weeks was a tremendous courtesy. At 12:30 p.m. on Friday I shall file warrants in the system. My team has availability to meet to discuss reasonable consent bonds Wednesday and Thursday.”
Defendants have until noon Friday to surrender.
- AJC reporters David Wickert and Bill Rankin contributed to this article.
About the Author
