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Donald Trump has said he will surrender to authorities in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, one day after his rivals for the Republican party’s nomination for president are set to take the stage for a primetime debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform late on Monday that he would be flying to Atlanta on Thursday to be “arrested by a radical left district attorney”. The former president faces 13 charges in Georgia, including violating the state’s anti-racketeering laws and criminal conspiracy.
“Can you believe it?” Trump said in the post, accusing Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, of carrying out a “witch hunt” against him “in strict co-ordination” with the US Department of Justice. He has repeatedly claimed that his growing legal troubles are the result of “election interference” by President Joe Biden and the Democratic party.
Trump’s surrender in Georgia comes as he faces mounting legal woes in four separate criminal cases that have come to overshadow his campaign for re-election — but have done little to dent his political aspirations, with the former president still dominating a crowded field of Republicans vying for the party’s nomination in 2024.
A closely watched poll in the key early voting state of Iowa, published on Monday, showed Trump with a commanding lead among likely Republican voters. The Des Moines Register/NBC News poll found Trump with 42 per cent support, followed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis in a distant second, on 19 points.
Trump’s expected appearance in Atlanta on Thursday will come just one day after the hotly anticipated first televised debate between the Republican presidential hopefuls, hosted by the Republican National Committee in Milwaukee.
Trump said at the weekend that he did not plan on attending, citing his strong poll numbers.
Willis last week in Atlanta said Trump and 18 co-defendants had until Friday, August 25, to turn themselves into the authorities, after issuing a sweeping 98-page indictment relating to the former president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump and his co-defendants, including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, are expected to pose for mugshots when they are processed at a local prison. Arraignments, where charges will be formally read and defendants will be asked how they plea, are expected early next month.
Trump is expected to plead not guilty to the 13 charges that were brought against him by the Georgia prosecutors, including violating the state’s anti- racketeering laws, engaging in criminal solicitation and a criminal conspiracy, making false statements, and filing false documents.
Court filings published earlier on Monday showed Trump’s lawyers had agreed to bail terms, including a $200,000 bond and a pledge not to intimidate witnesses, ahead of his booking.
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