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      What Fani Willis Got Wrong in Her Trump Indictment

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      By assembling a sprawling, 19-defendant RICO indictment with 41 counts, District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County has brought the sort of charging instrument that has typically led to monthslong trials, complicated appeals and exhaustion for the participating attorneys. Now, as some co-defendants seek federal removal while others demand speedy trials in state court, we are starting to see the costs of complexity.In federal and state cases, Donald Trump’s legal game plan has always been the same: delay often and everywhere with the goal of winning the 2024 election and hoping the charges go away. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference indictment — just four counts brought solely against Mr. Trump — makes that difficult. On Monday, the judge set the trial for March 4, 2024.By contrast, the Georgia indictment is a sprawling account of a conspiracy among the former president, his closest advisers and state and local Republican officials to change the outcome of the 2020 Georgia election through an escalating series of falsehoods. For many, it is a satisfying political document. But as a legal instrument, its ambitious scope will provide the co-defendants with many opportunities for delay, appeals, and constitutional challenges.And even though Fulton might very will win in the end, a simpler, more direct approach would likely lead to a better result, faster, here’s why.Much of the Georgia indictment is about how Mr. Trump and others tried to get public officials to do implausible things to hand him the election — things like asking state senators to appoint an alternate slate of electors, calling a special session of the General Assembly or asking the secretary of state to “find” the votes Mr. Trump needed to win.The state chose to charge this conduct in two ways. One of them is strong and simple: Team Trump lied to elected officials and tried to forge documents.The other — that they were aware of the officials’ oaths of office and were hoping specifically to get them to violate it — is unusual and hard to prove.Solicitation requires you to ask someone else to commit a felony intentionally. In this case, the oath of office the defendants were being asked to violate was a promise to follow the Constitution and do what’s best for their constituents. It is indeed a crime in Georgia for a public officer to “willfully and intentionally” violate the terms of his oath.Here’s the problem: It’s hard enough to prove that Mr. Trump’s request violates the Constitution, since the Constitution allows states to figure out how to select electors. But then the state must also prove that Mr. Trump knew this would violate the electors’ oath of office.It seems possible that Mr. Trump had no idea what these officials’ oath of office was, maybe even no idea that they swore an oath at all. Under Georgia’s “mistake of fact” affirmative defense, if Mr. Trump has some evidence that he was operating under a “misapprehension of fact” that would justify his actions, the state must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt.There are a few reasons this could be a strong defense. First, Mr. Trump surrounded himself with individuals who told him what he was doing was legal. Georgia does not normally have an “advice of counsel” defense, but in this context it seems relevant that people he apparently trusted were not telling him this would violate any oath of office.And to put it gently, Mr. Trump is plausibly ignorant on a variety of subjects, ranging from how hurricanes are formed to whether it’s a good idea to use or inject disinfectants as a possible Covid cure. Even if prosecutors can meet the burden of showing that what he requested was unconstitutional — not necessarily an easy thing to establish with a jury of non-lawyers — it may be difficult to prove that Donald Trump knew, or cared, what the Constitution had to say on the subject.Then there’s the Hawaii precedent. Mr. Trump’s advisers were relying on an incident from the 1960 presidential election, when Richard Nixon looked as though he had won the state of Hawaii by a few dozen votes. But the results were so uncertain that three Democrats submitted their Electoral College votes just in case, and when, after a recount, it looked like John F. Kennedy was the actual winner, the Senate (headed by Nixon) unanimously agreed to the alternate slate.Even though no court ever blessed this procedure, or even held that it wasn’t criminal, Mr. Trump’s team could argue with a straight face that they believed their request was legally possible.There’s also the possibility of a First Amendment defense. Typically, people are allowed to petition the government to do things, even unconstitutional things. That a court might, down the line, find those things to be unconstitutional seems like a dangerous basis to criminalize that petitioning.I’d understand bringing these charges to get at some obviously bad and immoral conduct by the president if there were nothing else available. But there are other, much stronger charges in the same indictment without the same constitutional concerns. Take the false statement counts: The very best case that Mr. Trump and his team could cite is United States v. Alvarez, where the Supreme Court held that there is a First Amendment right to lie about having received the Medal of Honor. But the Supreme Court also specifically said that this protection vanishes when lying for material gain, or to the government.Rudy Giuliani told state legislators that election workers were passing around flash drives like “vials of heroin” and that thousands of dead and felonious voters participated, but he can’t claim those statements have constitutional protection. All Mr. Giuliani can do is show the court what evidence supported those statements. There is none. And what’s more, Mr. Giuliani recently admitted in a civil filing that his claims against two Fulton County election workers had been false. Despite claiming that it was for “this litigation only,” that’s an admission.Similarly, the forgery charges simply need to establish a conspiracy to create fake elector votes that could potentially be counted on Jan. 6. It’s irrelevant whether the parties thought it was legal to do this, so long as they knew they were not, in fact, the duly appointed electors.So it is an odd legal choice to drag a jury through weak, disputed counts in a monthslong trial when you could just focus on the counts that are hard to challenge and easy to explain, saving weeks in the process. The RICO count will already require dozens of witnesses and some complicated instructions, so tossing in these oath of office charges seems like a recipe for confusion and delay.And it’s not just the charges that complicate things, but the sheer number of defendants. A judge granted one co-defendant, Ken Chesebro, a speedy trial, which will require Fulton County to bring this case to trial by Nov. 3 or acquit him as a matter of law. (Sidney Powell has also requested a speedy trial.)Ms. Willis reacted by requesting an October date for the entire case, but at least for the moment, a judge has declined her request. This puts the prosecutors in a bind. Mr. Chesebro’s trial would give Mr. Trump a useful preview of the entire case, from voir dire to closing arguments, which could weaken the effectiveness of Ms. Willis’s prosecution of Mr. Trump and the other defendants. It would allow Mr. Trump’s lawyers to dig into witness testimony and perhaps encourage Georgia Republicans to step in.Additionally, it might be very difficult for Fulton County to actually grant these parties the speedy trial they’ve requested. There is some Georgia authority to suggest that a trial does not “begin” under the statutory speedy trial act until a jury is empaneled and sworn. What happens if Fulton County needs a month, or two months, to actually select the jury that will be sworn?And for all the talk of potentially flipping co-defendants, many of the people in this case don’t have all that much criminal exposure. With no mandatory minimums for prison time and no criminal history, many of the participants could reasonably expect probation, and maybe even a first-offender sentence that would not count as a felony. A simpler case, with fewer co-defendants, would go more swiftly, with less legal uncertainty.As a general, George Washington was known for unworkable battle plans. Where an ordinary commander might send all his troops to one location at one time, Washington would split them into three columns, expecting them to arrive all at one spot with precision timing. It rarely worked out. Despite those mistakes, he’s now best known for winning.For all the potential problems with this indictment, I would still expect Ms. Willis to secure a conviction against Mr. Trump on one or more counts if this case goes to trial as it intends.But there are a dozen ways that things can go sideways, and it is very possible that history will remember the two years that Fulton County took to bring these charges as a wasted opportunity to make a simpler case.Andrew Fleischman is an attorney at Sessions & Fleischman in Atlanta.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Mark Meadows Testifies in Bid to Move Georgia Trump Case to Federal Court

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      Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, told a judge he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.A battle over whether to move the Georgia racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies to federal court began in earnest on Monday, when Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in favor of such a move before a federal judge in Atlanta.Under questioning by his own lawyers and by prosecutors, Mr. Meadows stated emphatically that he believed that his actions detailed in the indictment fell within the scope of his duties as chief of staff. But he also appeared unsure of himself at times, saying often that he could not recall details of events in late 2020 and early 2021. “My wife will tell you sometimes that I forget to take out the trash,” he told Judge Steve C. Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.At another point during the daylong hearing, he asked whether he was properly complying with the judge’s instructions, saying, “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”The effort to shift the case to federal court is the first major legal fight since the indictment of Mr. Trump, Mr. Meadows and 17 others was filed by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga. The indictment charges Mr. Trump and his allies with interfering in the 2020 presidential election in the state. Mr. Meadows is one of several defendants who are trying to move the case; any ruling on the issue could apply to all 19 defendants.Mr. Meadows testified that Mr. Trump directed him to set up the now-famous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state. During the call — a focus of the case — Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Raffensperger and said he wanted to “find” nearly 12,000 more Trump votes, enough to reverse his defeat in Georgia.Mr. Meadows said Mr. Trump wanted to make the call because he believed that fraud had occurred, and wanted to resolve questions about the ballot signature verification process. “We all want accurate elections,” Mr. Meadows said at one point.Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican who is the state’s top elections official, also testified after being subpoenaed by the prosecution. He recounted how he had ignored earlier calls from Mr. Meadows — he said he “didn’t think it was appropriate” to talk to him while Mr. Trump was contesting the state’s results — and initially tried to avoid the Jan. 2 call with Mr. Trump. Under questioning by the prosecution, he characterized it as “a campaign call.”“Outreach to this extent was extraordinary,” he said of the calls from Mr. Meadows and Mr. Trump.Monday’s hearing marked a dramatic inflection point in the case: Mr. Meadows, one of the highest-profile defendants, faced Fulton County prosecutors for the first time. Mr. Raffensperger recounted the threats against him, his wife and election workers after Mr. Trump made unfounded allegations about Georgia voter fraud. And Mr. Trump’s distinctive voice filled the courtroom as prosecutors played snippets of the Jan. 2 call.“We won the state,” Mr. Trump said.If the effort to move the case to federal court succeeds, it could benefit the Trump side by broadening the jury pool beyond Fulton County into outlying counties where the former president has somewhat more support.It could also slow down at least some of the proceedings. If the case remains in state court, three of the defendants are likely to face trial starting in October. Kenneth Chesebro has already been granted an early trial, and Sidney Powell has sought the same. A lawyer for John Eastman, another defendant, has said he, too, will seek a speedy trial.Removing a case to federal court requires persuading a judge that the actions under scrutiny were carried out by federal officers as part of their official business. Earlier this year, Mr. Trump failed in his attempt to move a New York State criminal case against him to federal court; his argument in that case was seen as particularly tenuous.Mr. Meadows was cross-examined by Anna Cross, a veteran prosecutor who has worked for district attorneys in three Atlanta area counties. She continually pressed him on what kind of federal policy or interest he was advancing in carrying out what prosecutors have described in court documents as political acts in service of the Trump campaign — and thus not grounds for removal to federal court.Mr. Meadows and his lawyers argue that the job of chief of staff sometimes seeps into the realm of politics by its very nature, and that the local district attorney is essentially operating beyond her power by seeking to delineate what a powerful federal official’s job should and should not be.Ms. Cross noted to Mr. Meadows that he had visited suburban Cobb County, Ga., where a ballot audit was taking place, after a meeting with William P. Barr, who was then the U.S. attorney general. During the meeting, Mr. Barr dismissed election fraud claims as unsupported by facts. Mr. Meadows replied that in his mind, there were still allegations worthy of investigation.The arguments echoed those made in filings before the hearing by the prosecution and Mr. Meadows’s lawyers. Mr. Meadows, along with all 18 other defendants, is charged with racketeering. Along with Mr. Trump, he is also accused of soliciting Mr. Raffensperger to violate his oath of office. (Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, has written that he felt he was being pressured to “fudge the numbers.”)During his testimony, Mr. Meadows discussed the trip he made to Cobb County during its audit of signatures on mail-in absentee ballots. He was turned away after trying to get into the room where state investigators were verifying the signatures. Mr. Meadows said he had been in the area visiting his children who live there, and went to the auditing location because he was “anticipating” that Mr. Trump would eventually bring up the Cobb County review. He said what he found was “a very professional operation.”The case continues to move forward in state court. On Monday, the judge, Scott McAfee, scheduled arraignments of Mr. Trump and the other defendants for Sept. 6. It is possible that some or all of the arraignments will not be conducted in person, given the heightened security requirements involving a former president.For the next few weeks at least, the case will be wrangled by two different judges working in courthouses a few blocks apart in downtown Atlanta. Judge McAfee, of Fulton County Superior Court, is an appointee of Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and a member of the conservative Federalist Society, though he also once worked for Ms. Willis and is well regarded by many lawyers on both sides of the case.Judge Jones, an Obama appointee, has been moving quickly regarding the removal question. In 2019, he upheld Georgia’s purge of nearly 100,000 names from its voter rolls, over the objections of liberal activists. In 2020, he blocked a six-week abortion ban from taking effect in the state.The Georgia case is the fourth criminal indictment of Mr. Trump this year. If Mr. Trump is elected president again, he could theoretically try to pardon himself for any federal convictions. But regardless of whether the Georgia case is tried in state or federal court, it concerns state crimes, which are beyond the pardon power of presidents.Christian Boone More

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      Why Trial Dates for Trump’s Georgia Case Are So Uncertain

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      Some defendants have already sought to move the case to federal court, while others are seeking speedy or separate trials.Even as former President Donald J. Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in one by one at an Atlanta jail this week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out.They are already at odds over when they will have their day in court, but also, crucially, where. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines.Five defendants have already sought to move the state case to federal court, citing their ties to the federal government. The first one to file — Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election — will make the argument for removal on Monday, in a hearing before a federal judge in Atlanta.Federal officials charged with state crimes can move their cases to federal court if they can convince a judge that they are being charged for actions connected to their official duties, among other things.In the Georgia case, the question of whether to change the venue — a legal maneuver known as removal — matters because it would affect the composition of a jury. If the case stays in Fulton County, Ga., the jury will come from a bastion of Democratic politics where Mr. Trump was trounced in 2020. If the case is removed to federal court, the jury will be drawn from a 10-county region of Georgia that is more suburban and rural — and somewhat more Trump-friendly. Because it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury, this modest advantage could prove to be a very big deal.The coming fights over the proper venue for the case are only one strand of a complicated tangle of efforts being launched by a gaggle of defense lawyers now representing Mr. Trump and the 18 others named in the 98-page racketeering indictment. This week, the lawyers clogged both state and federal court dockets with motions that will also determine when the case begins.Already, one defendant’s case is splitting off as a result. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after the 2020 election, has asked for a speedy trial, and the presiding state judge has agreed to it. His trial is now set to begin on Oct. 23. Another defendant, Sidney Powell, filed a similar motion on Friday, and a third, John Eastman, also plans to invoke his right to an early trial, according to one of his lawyers.Soon after Mr. Chesebro set in motion the possibility of an October trial, Mr. Trump, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of going to court so soon, informed the court that he intended to sever his case from the rest of the defendants. Ordering separate trials for defendants in a large racketeering indictment can occur for any number of reasons, and the judge, Scott McAfee, has made clear the early trial date applied only to Mr. Chesebro.Mr. Trump’s move came as no surprise. As the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he is in no hurry to see the Georgia matter, or the other three criminal cases against him, go to trial. In the separate federal election interference case Mr. Trump faces in Washington, D.C., his lawyers have asked that the trial start safely beyond the November 2024 general election — in April 2026.In Georgia, the possibility that even a portion of the sprawling case may go to trial in October remains up in the air. The removal efforts have much to do with that.There is a possibility that if one of the five defendants seeking removal is successful, then all 19 will be forced into federal court. Many legal scholars have noted that the question is unsettled.“We are heading for uncharted territory at this point, and nobody knows for sure what is in this novel frontier,” Donald Samuel, a veteran Atlanta defense attorney who represents one of the defendants in the Trump case, Ray Smith III, wrote in an email. “Maybe a trip to the Supreme Court.”The dizzying legal gamesmanship reflects the unique nature of a case that has swept up a former president, a number of relatively obscure Georgia Republican activists, a former publicist for Kanye West and lawyer-defendants of varying prominence. All bring their own agendas, financial concerns and opinions about their chances at trial.And of course, one of them seeks to regain the title of leader of the free world.Some of the defendants seeking a speedy trial may believe that the case against them is weak. They may also hope to catch prosecutors unprepared, although in this case, Fani T. Willis, the district attorney, has been investigating for two and a half years and has had plenty of time to get ready.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney, has been investigating the case for two and a half years. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAnother reason that some may desire a speedy trial is money.Ms. Willis had originally sought to start a trial in March, but even that seemed ambitious given the complexity of the case. Harvey Silverglate, the lawyer for Mr. Eastman, said he could imagine a scenario in which a verdict might not come for three years.“And Eastman is not a wealthy man,” he said.Mr. Silverglate added that his client “doesn’t have the contributors” that Mr. Trump has. “We are going to seek a severance and a speedy trial. If we have a severance, the trial will take three weeks,” he predicted.How long would a regular racketeering trial take? Brian Tevis, an Atlanta lawyer who negotiated the bond agreement for Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, said that “the defense side would probably want potentially a year or so to catch up.”“You have to realize that the state had a two-year head start,” he said. “They know what they have, no one else knows what they have. No discovery has been turned over, we haven’t even had arraignment yet.”In addition to Mr. Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, is already seeking removal, as is David Shafer, the former head of the Georgia Republican Party; Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator; and Cathy Latham, the former chair of the Republican Party in Coffee County, Ga. Mr. Trump is almost certain to follow, having already tried and failed to have a state criminal case against him in New York moved to federal court.Former President Donald J. Trump informed the court that he intended to sever his case from the rest of the defendants.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe indictment charges Mr. Meadows with racketeering and “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer” for his participation in the Jan. 2, 2021 call in which Mr. Trump told the Georgia secretary of state that he wanted to “find” enough votes to win Georgia. The indictment also describes other efforts by Mr. Meadows that prosecutors say were part of the illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election.Mr. Meadows’s lawyers argue that all of the actions in question were what “one would expect” of a White House chief of staff — “arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the president’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the president” — and that removal is therefore justified.Prosecutors contend that Mr. Meadows was in fact engaging in political activity that was not part of a chief of staff’s job.The issue is likely to be at the heart of Mr. Trump’s removal effort as well: In calling the secretary of state and other Georgia officials after he lost the election, was he working on his own behalf, or in his capacity as president, to ensure that the election had run properly?Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant law professor at Georgia State University, said that the indictment may contain an Easter egg that could spoil Mr. Trump’s argument that he was intervening in the Georgia election as part of his duty as a federal official.The indictment says that the election-reversal scheme lasted through September 2021, when Mr. Trump wrote a letter to Georgia’s secretary of state asking him to take steps to decertify the election.Mr. Trump, by that point, had been out of federal office for months.“By showing the racketeering enterprise continued well beyond his time in office,” Mr. Kreis said in a text message, “it undercuts any argument that Trump was acting in a governmental capacity to ensure the election was free, fair and accurate.” More

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      Catch the Smug Mug on That Thug!

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      WASHINGTON — If there were any justice in the world, Donald Trump would have taken the Mug Shot of Dorian Gray.As with Oscar Wilde’s charismatic and amoral narcissist, the Picture of Donald Trump should have been a “foul parody,” a reflection of what the chancer has done with his life. It should have shown Trump’s corroding soul rather than his truculent face.It should have revealed a man so cynical and depraved that he is willing to smash our nation’s soul — our democracy — and destroy faith in our institutions. All this simply to avoid being called a loser.“Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away,” Wilde wrote of Dorian’s portrait. “The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful.”Now that would have been some primo merch: Trump slapping a rotting mug shot on a mug and selling it on his campaign website for the low, low price of $25.Trump has long felt that squinting or scowling is a good look for him. Timothy O’Brien, a Trump biographer, recalled that Trump once told him that Clint Eastwood was the greatest movie star ever, and O’Brien believed that Donald and Melania modeled their squints on Eastwood’s. Maggie Haberman noted in The Times that when Trump posed for his official White House portrait, he scowled into the camera and told aides he thought he looked “like Churchill.”Thursday night was performative for Trump: sweeping in with his private jet and giant motorcade that screamed two-tiered justice system, with law enforcement clearing the Atlanta streets, like centurions clearing the way for Caesar.Trump told Newsmax’s Greg Kelly after the arraignment that he had “never heard the word ‘mug shot’” until his was taken — which just shows again that Trump is a pathological liar. Everyone in America has heard the term “mug shot.”Trump said that being booked at the horror chamber known as the Fulton County Jail — its location on Rice Street is cited in songs by rappers who have logged time there — was “a terrible experience.”“I went through an experience that I never thought I’d have to go through, but then, I’ve gone through the same experience three other times,” the 77-year-old said, adding about his mug shot, “They didn’t teach me that at the Wharton School of Finance.”They didn’t teach him not to be a big liar and cheat, either. Wharton is a place where they should teach you about mug shots. All American business schools should have a class on mug shots.Trump did another woe-is-me interview with Fox News Digital, admitting that getting processed by Georgia officials, who “insisted” he have the mug shot taken, was “not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”He no doubt workshopped his stroppy mug-shot look in front of the mirror, trying to convey “Never surrender!” as he was literally surrendering. And in another master stroke of projection, he accused the prosecutors pursuing him for election interference of “election interference.”But Trump is feral and cunning, and deep in his amygdala, he must have shivered, thinking to himself, “Damn, I could go to prison. My liberty is actually at risk.” Even though he has spent his whole life getting away with things, sliding out of things, stiffing people, conning people, he had to have a moment at the jail when he realized he is in the prosecutors’ sights. He even went out and hired a real criminal lawyer.Perplexing as it is, Trump devotees continue to adore him. President Biden sarcastically called Trump a “handsome guy,” but many on the right thrilled to his jailhouse portrait. “I say this with an unblemished record of heterosexuality,” Jesse Watters swooned on “The Five” on Fox News. “He looks good, and he looks hard.”At the Republican debate, no one was big enough to shove him aside. Nikki Haley seemed the most appealing. Ron DeSantis’s inability to smile is disqualifying. It was pathetic that the best the Florida governor could muster, asked if Mike Pence acted properly when he certified the election, was to say, “I got no beef with him.”Vivek Ramaswamy seemed smarmy. Scott Jennings, a Republican commentator on CNN, said that Ramaswamy was Scrappy-Doo to Trump’s Scooby-Doo. That comparison is not fair to Scooby or Scrappy, who are positive forces in the world, helping to unmask crooks, unlike Trump and his mini-me.On Friday afternoon, Trump put out a fund-raising pitch based on his 20 minutes in hell.“It’s violent,” Trump said of the jail where, as he let his fans know in his fund-raising email, he was given booking number 2313827. “The building is falling apart. Inmates have dug their fingers into the crumbling walls and ripped out chunks to fashion over 1,000 shanks. Just this year alone, 7 inmates have died in that jail.”Yep, he’s getting scared.As Audrey Hepburn said in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” after she tangled with the law, “There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      A Trump Mug Shot for History

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      The former president’s booking photo is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance.As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”In the photo, Mr. Trump is posed against a plain gray backdrop, just like the 11 of his fellow defendants whose mug shots were taken before him, including Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.As with them, his face is lit from above by a blinding white flash that hits his ash blond hair like a spotlight. As usual, he is dressed in the colors of the American flag: navy suit, white shirt, bright red tie — though his typical flag lapel pin is either absent or invisible in the picture. He glowers out from beneath his brows, unsmiling, eyes rendered oddly bloodshot, brow furrowed, chin tucked in, as if he is about to head-butt the camera. The image is stark, shorn of the flags and fancy that have been Mr. Trump’s preferred framings for photo ops at Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower, or during his term in office, and that communicate power and the gilded glow of success.Was the photo necessary? In the last few years, a number of police departments and newsrooms around the country have been rethinking the practice of releasing mug shots to the public, viewing them as prejudicial at a time when a subject has not yet been proved guilty. The prosecutors in the other three Trump cases, both state and federal, have refrained from taking mug shots of Mr. Trump at all, given that he is one of the most recognizable people in the world and not considered a flight risk. Georgia laws, however, dictate that a mug shot be taken for a felony offense, and the Georgia sheriff in charge of booking has said that all defendants will be treated equally.Either way, it is part of the pageantry of the moment, part of the theater of law. And Mr. Trump is a man who has always understood the power and language of theater. Of putting on a show. Of the way an image can be used for viral communication and opinion-making.That’s part of why the “would they or wouldn’t they” discussion about mug shots resurfaced each time an indictment was handed down. In its concrete reality, the Fulton County mug shot may seem more irrevocable than anything else that has happened in the Trump cases thus far — at least until the two sides enter a courtroom. Perhaps that is why the concept alone started trending on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, even before Mr. Trump had boarded a plane to Georgia to surrender.While very few voters are likely to have read any of the Trump indictments in full, they will almost all definitely see the mug shot, and the former president — who posted this one on his recently reinstated feed on X, not long after it was released — cares deeply about his pictures. He always has.As far back as 2016, he was complaining about photos of him that NBC had used, especially one that he said showed him with a double chin. In 2017 he tweeted about a CNN book on the election: “Hope it does well but used worst cover photo of me!” In 2020, when a snap of him on the White House lawn with his hair blown back in the wind went viral, he chimed in: “More Fake News. This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!”And earlier this month on Truth Social, he said of the Fox News show “Fox & Friends,” “They purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back.” (The picture he seemed upset about showed him with his chin tucked in, rather than jutting out, creating the appearance of a few extra chins.) The suggestion was that this was part of the reason he would not join the first Republican primary debate.He has crowed about how generals advising him were “better looking than Tom Cruise and stronger”; insisted that the women who work for him should “dress like women,” according to Axios; and griped that Vogue never gave Melania a cover while he was in the White House.He knows that for an electorate raised on TV and social media, the picture is what lasts. It’s what is remembered (and what is memed). What makes the myth. Or unmakes it. Words come and go, but imagery is a language everyone can understand. And this latest image is clear proof of a situation that is not within the former president’s control. It cannot be airbrushed or filtered or otherwise altered.Now that it exists, however, how it will be interpreted and used is still a question.Mug shots have, through history, been weaponized in different ways. They have been used to suggest guilt and shame, and to knock down the famous, as with O.J. Simpson, whose flat stare and five o’clock shadow ended up on the cover of Time — albeit in an image darkened unnecessarily by the magazine.But mug shots have also become symbols of pride: of those who stand against abuse of power and legal wrongs, as with the mug shots of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, or even Jane Fonda, whose 1970 mug shot after she had been arrested on false charges of drug smuggling, fist raised against the Vietnam War, became a call to action for a generation of activist women.Mr. Trump and his advisers understand this all too well. Indeed, his team had most likely been planning and thinking about how Mr. Trump should look in his mug shot, what expression he should use, since the photo became a possibility.There was little chance, for example, that he would be caught smiling, like John Edwards, the former senator whose mug shot was taken in 2011 when he was indicted on a charge of violating campaign finance laws.The Trump team had, after all, already created its own joke “mug shot” with a fake height chart, an ersatz name placard and the slogan “Not Guilty” below it all after his first indictment, splashing it on T-shirts and coffee cups in his campaign store, the better to make a mockery of the whole idea. Though it is also true that his expressions in both the fake and the real photos are similarly pugnacious. He and his team have been laying the groundwork for this particular contingency for awhile. More

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      Raising a Hand for Donald Trump, the Man in the Mug Shot

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      One by one, some with a little hesitation, six hands went up on the debate stage Wednesday night when the eight Republican candidates answered whether they would support Donald Trump for president if he were a convicted criminal. Hand-raising is a juvenile and reductive exercise in any political debate, but it’s worth unpacking this moment, which provides clarity into the damage that Mr. Trump has inflicted on his own party.Six people who themselves want to lead their country think it would be fine to have a convicted felon as the nation’s chief executive. Six candidates apparently would not be bothered to see Mr. Trump stand on the Capitol steps in 2025 and swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, no matter if he had been convicted by a jury of violating that same Constitution by (take your choice) conspiracy to obstruct justice, lying to the U.S. government, racketeering and conspiracy to commit forgery, or conspiracy to defraud the United States. (The Fox News hosts, trying to race through the evening’s brief Trump section so they could move on to more important questions about invading Mexico, didn’t dwell on which charges qualified for a hand-raise. So any of them would do.)There was never any question that Vivek Ramaswamy’s hand would shoot up first. But even Nikki Haley, though she generally tried to position herself as a reasonable alternative to Mr. Ramaswamy’s earsplitting drivel, raised her hand. So did Ron DeSantis, after peeking around to see what the other kids were doing. And Mike Pence’s decision to join this group, while proudly boasting of his constitutional bona fides for simply doing his job on Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrated the cognitive dissonance at the heart of his candidacy.Only Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson demonstrated some respect for the rule of law by opposing the election of a criminal. Mr. Hutchinson said Mr. Trump was “morally disqualified” from being president because of what happened on Jan. 6, and made the interesting argument that he may also be legally disqualified under the 14th Amendment for inciting an insurrection. Mr. Christie said the country had to stop “normalizing” Mr. Trump’s conduct, which he said was beneath the office of president. Though he was accused by Mr. Ramaswamy of the base crime of trying to become an MSNBC contributor, Mr. Christie managed to say something that sounded somewhat forthright: “I am not going to bow to anyone when we have a president of the United States who disrespects the Constitution.” For this Mr. Christie and Mr. Hutchinson were both roundly booed.It’s important to understand the implications of what those six candidates were saying, particularly after watching Mr. Trump turn himself in on Thursday at the Fulton County Jail to be booked on the racketeering charge and 12 other counts of breaking Georgia law. Only Mr. Ramaswamy was willing to utter the words, amid his talk about shutting down the F.B.I. and instantly pardoning Mr. Trump, saying Mr. Trump was charged with “politicized indictments” and calling the justice system “corrupt.”“We cannot set a precedent where the party in power uses police force to indict its political opponents,” he said. “It is wrong. We have to end the weaponization of justice in this country.”This is the argument that Mr. Trump has been making for months, of course, but when more than three-fourths of the main players in the Republican field supports it, it essentially means that a major political party has given up on the nation’s criminal justice system. The party thinks indictments are weapons and prosecutors are purely political agents. The rule of law hardly has a perfect record in this country and its inequities are many, but when a political party says that the criminal justice system has become politicized, and that the indictments of three prosecutors in separate jurisdictions are meaningless, it begins to dissolve the country’s bedrock.Mr. Pence said he wished that issues surrounding the 2020 election had not risen to criminal proceedings, but they did, because two prosecutors chose to do their jobs faithfully, just as the former vice president did on Jan. 6. He piously told the audience that his oath of office in 2017 was made not just to the American people, but “to my heavenly father.” But any religious moralizing about that oath was debased when he said he was willing to support as president a man whose mug shot was taken Thursday at a squalid jail in Atlanta, who was fingerprinted and had his body dimensions listed and released on bond like one of the shoplifters and car burglars who were also processed in the jail the same day.Apparently Thursday’s proceedings were a meaningless farce to Mr. Pence, Ms. Haley and the other four. But most Americans still have enough respect for the legal system that they don’t consider being booked a particularly frivolous or rebellious act. The charges against Mr. Trump are not for civil disobedience or crimes of conscience; they accuse him of grave felonies committed entirely for the corrupt purpose of holding onto power.Being booked and mug-shotted for these kinds of crimes represents degradation to most people, despite the presumption of innocence that still applies at the trial level. How does a parent explain to a child why a man in a mug shot might be the nation’s next leader? That should be a very difficult conversation, unless you happen to be a Republican candidate for president.Source photographs by Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock and Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, via Associated Press.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump Surrenders at Atlanta Jail in Georgia Election Interference Case

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      Mr. Trump spent about 20 minutes at the jail, getting fingerprinted and having his mug shot taken for the first time in the four criminal cases he has faced this year.Former President Donald J. Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta on Thursday and was booked on 13 felony charges for his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia.It was an extraordinary scene: a former U.S. president who flew on his own jet to Atlanta and surrendered at a jail compound surrounded by concertina wire and signs that directed visitors to the “prisoner intake” area.As Mr. Trump’s motorcade of black S.U.V.s drove to the jail through cleared streets, preceded by more than a dozen police motorcycles — a trip captured by news helicopters and broadcast live on national television — two worlds collided in ways never before seen in American political history. The nation’s former commander in chief walked into a notorious jail, one that has been cited in rap lyrics and is the subject of a Department of Justice investigation into unsanitary and unsafe conditions, including allegations that an “incarcerated person died covered in insects and filth.”The case is the fourth brought against Mr. Trump this year, but Thursday was the first time that he was booked at a jail.Mr. Trump spent about 20 minutes there, submitting to some of the routines of criminal defendant intake. He was fingerprinted and had his mug shot taken. He was assigned an identification number, P01135809. But the process was faster than for most defendants; minutes after he entered the jail, Mr. Trump’s record appeared in Fulton County’s booking system, which listed him as having “blond or strawberry” hair, a height of 6 feet 3 inches and a weight of 215 pounds — 24 pounds less than the White House doctor reported Mr. Trump weighing in 2018.Mr. Trump’s motorcade arriving at the Fulton County jail.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesHis form was filled out in advance by aides, according to someone familiar with the preparations, not by officials at the jail.Outside, supporters and detractors of Mr. Trump had gathered all day in the swampy Atlanta heat. The news media was kept at bay. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office barred reporters from accessing the parking lot in front of the jail’s main entrance, a break with tradition.Before leaving Atlanta on his plane, Mr. Trump was defiant. The Georgia case, he said, was a “travesty of justice.”“We have every right to challenge an election we think is dishonest,” he said.The former president’s bond in the case was set at $200,000 on Monday, and he used a commercial bondsman, Charles Shaw of Foster Bail Bonds, to post his bond in exchange for $20,000, the bondsman confirmed.In a last minute shake-up of his legal team before he surrendered on Thursday, Mr. Trump hired Steven H. Sadow, a veteran criminal defense lawyer in Atlanta whose clients have included prominent rappers. In a filing to the court, Mr. Sadow said he was now “lead counsel of record for Donald John Trump.”Lawyers on both sides of the case filed a flurry of legal motions on Thursday. After one of the 19 defendants, the lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, demanded a speedy trial, Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who is prosecuting the case, asked a judge to set a trial date of Oct. 23, months earlier than she had originally sought.The Fulton County jail in Atlanta.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesMr. Trump objected to that timing, an indication that he wants to move more slowly. The judge approved the October trial date, but only for Mr. Chesebro. The ultimate date of any trial, however, will not be clear until efforts by some of the defendants to move the case to federal court are resolved.Mr. Trump is at the top of the list of 19 defendants in the indictment released last week. Prosecutors used a state version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, that they hope will allow them to show the ways in which Mr. Trump and several of his allies worked together toward the common goal of seeking to overturn the results of the election in Georgia.The RICO statute is often used against the mafia and street gangs. In the Georgia indictment, Mr. Trump and his co-defendants are accused of impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, conspiracy to defraud the state and “acts involving theft,” among other crimes.The indictment lays out the broadest set of accusations leveled against the former president so far. Georgia’s racketeering law can carry criminal penalties of between five and 20 years in prison.It is the second case centered on Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Jack Smith, the special counsel, brought the other, a federal case, earlier in August.Ms. Willis began her investigation after a recording of Mr. Trump was released in which he told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he wanted to “find” 11,780 votes, one more than he needed to win the state and its Electoral College votes. Mr. Trump later described the call to Mr. Raffensperger as “absolutely perfect.”Protesters and supporters of Mr. Trump clashed outside the jail ahead of his arrival. Nicole Craine for The New York TimesHis defiance in the face of the four cases lodged against him has provided political oxygen for his campaign and a significant fund-raising windfall.After his first indictment in March, which charged him in a hush-money scheme to cover up a potential sex scandal, Mr. Trump’s campaign reported raising $15 million in the two weeks that followed.In June, an indictment in Miami that centered on classified documents was followed by $7 million in fund-raising, Mr. Trump’s campaign reported.Hours before he was set to be booked on Thursday, Mr. Trump sent out a fund-raising email. “This arrest — and every one of these four sham indictments,” he wrote, “have all been designed to strike fear into the hearts of the American people, to intimidate you out of voting to save your country and ultimately, to interfere in the 2024 election.”In four recent polls, a majority of respondents said the criminal charges against Mr. Trump were warranted. But at the same time, Mr. Trump’s standing among Republican voters is strong, and he is holding onto a considerable lead against his Republican primary rivals.He declined to take part in the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign on Wednesday, which featured eight of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination. Bret Baier, one of the debate’s moderators on Fox News, quipped that Mr. Trump was the “elephant not in the room.”A crowd began to gather outside the jail early Thursday morning.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMr. Trump is also neck and neck against President Biden in recent polls. A Quinnipiac University poll this month showed him trailing Mr. Biden by a single percentage point, 47 percent to 46 percent, in a hypothetical rematch. Mr. Biden’s advantage was five percentage points in July.Outside the Fulton County jail, supporters of Mr. Trump came early in the day, hoping for a glimpse of the former president. Rick Hearn, 44, an Atlanta accountant, brought a poster with him that showed an image of Mr. Trump next to one of Nelson Mandela, with the label “political prisoners.”“I feel like I needed to be a part of this,” Mr. Hearn said,“Those in charge,” he added, need to know that they cannot “take away our rights and get away with it.”Alan Feuer More

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      Fotos policiales de los acusados de conspirar con Trump: ¿por qué sonríen?

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      La imagen que se toma al fichar a los acusados de un delito suele reflejar seriedad, incredulidad o sorpresa. Eso no ha sucedido con algunos de los acusados con el expresidente en Georgia.[Última hora: Donald Trump fue fichado en Georgia y las autoridades difundieron su foto policial. Puedes leer más aquí, en inglés].La típica foto policial suele ser un asunto sombrío: con mala iluminación y gesto taciturno. Es un retrato permanente de la vergüenza, la letra escarlata del sistema legal.Y, casi por definición, va sin sonrisa.Pero entre las fotografías que han surgido de la oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton en Atlanta, donde Donald Trump y otras 18 personas han sido acusadas de conspirar para revertir las elecciones de 2020, hay varias que son peculiarmente alegres.Jenna Ellis, exabogada de Trump, luce una amplia sonrisa, al igual que David Shafer, expresidente del Partido Republicano de Georgia. Scott Hall, operador político de Trump, no logra reprimir una sonrisita burlona. Sidney Powell, acusada de esparcir teorías de la conspiración desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, deja ver un brillo en los ojos.Sidney Powell, acusada de difundir teorías conspirativas desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, es retratada con un gesto que oscila entre una sonrisa y un ceño fruncido.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton vía Associated Press¿Y qué expresan sin lugar a dudas sus expresiones faciales? Desafío.El semblante que han puesto para la cámara del sistema de justicia penal, y para el lente de la historia, recuerda los otros papeles de reparto que desempeñan en lo que parece ser una extraordinaria producción del teatro político: uno que concuerda con la afirmación muy repetida por Trump de que la fiscalía es una farsa y una burla.En la fotografía de Ellis, tomada el miércoles —tan alegre que podría ser una foto de perfil, a no ser por el logotipo de la oficina del sheriff detrás de su hombro— parece a punto de estallar en risas por el lugar donde se encuentra.La política moderna en tiempos de redes sociales, como casi todo, es una batalla por crear, controlar y definir imágenes. Y la foto policial, inventada en Bélgica en la década de 1840 como una forma útil de identificación, es un nuevo frente en ese combate.La mayoría de los otros acusados fichados hasta el momento de delitos de conspiración para revertir los resultados de las elecciones de 2020 dejaban ver su serio dilema. Tal vez ninguno más que Rudolph Giuliani, quien apretó los labios, miró con frialdad al frente y frunció el ceño luego de comparecer ante las autoridades el miércoles en Atlanta.Ellis intentó adueñarse de un proceso que suele verse como humillante o intimidante; ella ha presentado su acusación como una persecución política injusta que debe superarse con fe y optimismo.Publicó su fotografía policial en internet con una cita de los Salmos: “¡Alégrense, ustedes los justos; regocíjense en el Señor!”.Cuando se le pidieron comentarios, Ellis comparó su situación con la de un antiguo cliente, un ministro que desafió una orden de cerrar su iglesia en la pandemia.“Quienes se burlan de mí, de mi excliente y mi Dios, quieren ver que me quiebro y no tendrán esa satisfacción”, dijo. “Sonreí porque estoy decidida a enfrentar este proceso con valentía y actuando según la fe. No pueden robarse mi alegría”.Powell y los abogados que representan a Shafer y Hall no respondieron de inmediato a pedidos de comentario.Haber sido retratado en las instalaciones del condado de Fulton podría ser incluso un símbolo de estatus entre los seguidores de Trump más incondicionales: Amy Kremer, quien ayudo a organizar el mitin previo al motín del 6 de enero de 2021 en el Capitolio, publicó una foto manipulada en la que aparece, sin sonreír, frente al logotipo del sheriff del condado de Fulton. No se le ha acusado en Georgia.Se supone que el retrato policial sea un ecualizador, que tanto los poderosos como los desposeídos sean blanco del mismo lente objetivo. Y muchos enemigos de Trump han criticado al Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. por no tomar la foto de la ficha policial (como harían con otros acusados) cuando el expresidente fue fichado por cargos federales en Miami y Washington.Esta vez será distinto.Por regla general, los políticos suelen asumir su fichaje en la comisaría como eventos políticos que al final tendrán un peso en el resultado legal.Cuando a Tom DeLay, líder de la cámara baja, se le acusó de lavado de dinero y conspiración en 2005, se atavió con traje, ajustó su corbata y sonrió de oreja a oreja. Fue una forma astuta de privar a sus oponentes de una imagen que fácilmente podrían usar en anuncios para atacarlo. (Se retiró del Congreso pero su posterior condena fue anulada en apelación).John Edwards, quien fue senador por Carolina del Norte y candidato demócrata a la vicepresidencia en 2004, sonrió con calidez ante la cámara como si estuviera frente a un simpatizante cuando lo ficharon al imputársele delitos de violación de leyes de financiación de campaña en 2011. Como Ellis, quería transmitir su inocencia y la injusticia de los cargos. (Fue absuelto de uno de los cargos y el gobierno retiró los restantes).Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesServicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesA los políticos les obsesiona proyectar mensajes, es un rasgo dominante de su especie. Tom DeLay, John Edwards y Rick Perry acudieron a que los ficharan como a un evento político que a final de cuentas podría influenciar el veredicto legal.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Travis vía Getty ImagesY en 2014, Rick Perry, entonces gobernador republicano de Texas, ofreció una sonrisa taimada cuando lo ficharon por delitos relacionados con presionar al fiscal de distrito demócrata del condado de Travis para que renunciara. Calificó los cargos de “farsa”, publicó fotos suyas en una heladería poco después y dos años más tarde fue absuelto de todos los cargos.En la mayoría de los casos, sonreír en la foto policial es una muestra de rebeldía.Eso ha sido particularmente cierto si se habla de los delincuentes famosos que, en general, han sido casi tan cuidadosos de su imagen como las estrellas de cine o los políticos. Al Capone sonrió en varios retratos policiales así como en su foto de identificación en Alcatraz. Y en la única foto que se le tomó al narcotraficante Pablo Escobar para una ficha policial, luego de que lo arrestaron por narcotráfico en Colombia, parecía casi jubiloso.Donaldson Collection — Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesPor lo general, los criminales famosos, como Al Capone y Pablo Escobar, han estado muy atentos a su imagen, como las estrellas de cine o los políticos.Archivio GBB vía AlamyTenía un buen motivo. Los cargos fueron retirados rápidamente.Glenn Thrush cubre el departamento de Justicia. Se unió al Times desde 2017, luego de haber trabajado para Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald y City Limits. Más de Glenn ThrushMaggie Haberman es corresponsal política sénior y autora de Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Formó parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. Más de Maggie Haberman More