Trump Georgia Election Case: All Defendants Surrender and Deliver

The last of Donald Trump’s 18 co-defendants surrendered Friday morning at an Atlanta jail, a day after the former president himself was jailed there in the Georgia election interference criminal case.

Stephen Lee, an Illinois police chaplain, arrived at the Fulton County Jail at 11 a.m. ET, an hour before the noon deadline in the case.

Trump surrendered Thursday night at the same jail and was quickly released on $200,000 bail after being tried on 13 counts.

This included being photographed for his photo, the first for a former US president to be made public.

Trump then returned home to New Jersey and gave an interview to Newsmax in which he said taking his picture was a “terrible experience”.

“It’s not a comfortable feeling, especially when you’ve done nothing wrong,” said Trump, whose 2024 Republican presidential campaign quickly began selling merchandise emblazoned with his photo to raise funds.

Within hours, co-defendants Jeffrey Clark, Emily Hayes, Michael Roman, Shawn Still and Robert Cheeley had made their way to the jail, records show. A sixth defendant, Trevian Kutti, surrendered a few hours later.

Lee followed suit soon after.

Lee and Kutti, a former publicist for Kanye West, are accused of trying to influence the testimony of Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County election worker.

The 19 defendants were charged on August 14 in an indictment accusing them of participating in a broad criminal conspiracy to undo Trump’s 2020 Georgia election loss to President Joe Biden.

Trump is separately charged in a federal criminal case with trying to overturn his defeat in the national election.

Clark is a former Justice Department official whom Trump considered installing as attorney general in late 2020 as he promoted the misconception that the DOJ had identified ‘significant concerns’ about alleged voter fraud in Georgia. and in other swing states won by Biden. Clark, who faces two counts, is seeking to have his case transferred to Federal Court.

Cheeley, a Georgia lawyer, is charged with 10 counts.

Roman, who was a Trump campaign official, is charged with seven crimes. He was involved in organizing citizens of Georgia and other swing states to run as legitimate members of Trump’s Electoral College.

Yet a Georgia state senator charged with seven counts was one of 16 so-called fake Trump voters who claimed to have won in Georgia. In the Electoral College, which determines who will win the presidency, only the candidate who won a state gets all of their voters.

Hayes, also known as Misty Hampton, is a former election supervisor from Coffey County, Georgia. She faces seven counts.

— Additional CNBC reports Kevin Breuninger