Former President Trump got the prime-time coverage he craved and the historic mug shot he wanted. Trump's drive-by visit to Atlanta on Thursday to be arrested for the fourth time in less than five months produced the stern-looking jailhouse photo that's sure to be the signature image of the 2024 campaign. His team indicated it will use the image on Trump '24 merchandise and in fundraising appeals to feed his claim that he's a victim of overzealous, partisan prosecutors, Axios reports. Trump not only posted the mug shot on his Truth Social account, he shared it on X, formerly Twitter. It was his first post there since Jan. 8, 2021 — two days after the Jan. 6 insurrection — when he wrote, "I will not be going to the inauguration on Jan. 20."
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has accused him of running a criminal enterprise that tried to overturn the election — state charges that are out of reach of any potential self-pardon he could try to issue if he were re-elected president. Instead of a courthouse like those Trump had visited in responding to felony indictments in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C., he reported Fulton County's decrepit, smelly jail. He was fingerprinted and issued inmate #P01135809. The Trump mugshot adds to those already released of the co-defendants who have surrendered, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis. When he surrendered in Florida in the federal case over his handling of classified documents, the U.S. Marshals Service cited “ample imagery of the defendant in the public domain” for why a mugshot was not needed, the Hill reports.
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