Donald Trump’s bond on racketeering and conspiracy charges relating to attempted election subversion in Georgia 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.
Terms included a prohibition of “act[ing] to intimidate any person known to … be a codefendant or witness in this case”, including in “posts on social media”.
Authorities in Georgia are investigating threats made to grand jurors.
The bond document also said Trump “shall not communicate in any way, directly or indirectly, about the facts of this case with any person known to him to be a codefendant in this case except through his or her counsel”.
John Eastman, a law professor who advised Trump in his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, saw bond set at $100,000.
Defendants also include the former New York mayor and Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani. The deadline for defendants to turn themselves in is 12pm ET on Friday.
The document concerning Trump’s bond was signed by Scott McAfee, a superior court judge, three Trump lawyers and Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county who last week secured indictments of Trump and 18 aides and allies.
Willis has proposed that arraignments begin in the week of 5 September before a trial in March.
Trump denies wrongdoing in Georgia and in three other indictments which have produced a total of 91 criminal charges.
The charges cover federal and state election subversion in 2020, the retention of classified information after leaving office, and hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 election.
Despite such unprecedented legal jeopardy – to which can be added civil investigations of Trump’s business affairs and a defamation case in which a judge said Trump was adjudicated a rapist – the former president dominates the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Ahead of the first debate on Wednesday, which Trump will not attend, he leads his nearest challenger, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, by about 40 points in national polling averages and by wide margins in key states.
On social media on Monday, some observers doubted that Trump, notorious for attacking enemies on social media (which he did the same day, aiming at the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp), would abide by the terms of his bond.
“Barring a real come-to-Jesus moment,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State law professor, “the only way Trump doesn’t violate his … conditions is if his lawyers confiscate his phone.”
Others noted how Trump has leveraged his predicament to fund his campaign to return to the White House, widely seen as his best hope of avoiding prison.
Ron Filipkowski, a Florida attorney turned viral Trump critic, said it was “time to shake down the donors”.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
