Well, they finally did it. They made the image that launched a million t-shirts.
The decision to go hard instead of smiling plays into the gangster category — this is Atlanta, after all, and a RICO case. So much for Bill Clinton.
According to Fulton County jail records released shortly after he arrived there, Trump’s hair was listed as “Blond or Strawberry,” his height at 6 feet 3 inches, and his weight at 215 pounds, all information that Fulton County releases as part of its booking process. It also assigned him an inmate number: P01135809.
Trump hasn’t yet entered a plea in the Georgia case. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said she wanted defendants to be arraigned in early September.
Speaking on the tarmac next to his private plane before departing Atlanta, Trump called his booking a sad day for America and repeated his false claim that the election was rigged. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, said he had a right to challenge the 2020 election.
“I did nothing wrong,” he said. “What they are doing is election interference.”
What do voters think? Well, Independents want this all resolved before they vote.
On Monday, Trump’s lawyers will face off against federal prosecutors before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan over when to schedule his trial in the Justice Department’s 2020 election case — a high-stakes dispute that could have dramatic implications for the 2024 election. Federal prosecutors have proposed that the trial begin on Jan. 2, 2024, while Trump’s lawyers have countered that the trial should take place in April 2026. If Trump gets his way, that would, perhaps not coincidentally, leave him plenty of time to complete his reelection bid and, if successful, shut the case down after retaking the White House.
Americans are far closer to the Justice Department’s position than to Trump’s. Fifty-nine percent of respondents in the poll said that the federal trial in Trump’s 2020 election subversion case should take place before the 2024 Republican primaries begin early next year. A slightly higher number — 61 percent of all respondents — said that the trial should take place before the general election next November.
There was a predictable partisan split among Democrats and Republicans, with nearly 90 percent of Democratic respondents seeking an early trial date and roughly a third of Republican respondents agreeing.
It was the reaction of independents, however, that may prove most ominous for Trump. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of independents said that Trump should stand trial before next November — a figure that suggests particular interest in and attentiveness to a case that effectively alleges that Trump tried to steal the last election. By way of a rough comparison, when we asked a similar question in June following Trump’s indictment by the Justice Department in Florida concerning his retention of classified documents, fewer than half of independent respondents (48 percent) said that the trial in that case should take place before next November.
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