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6 min ago

Here's how the Georgia election subversion case differs from the special counsel's January 6 case

From CNN's Kaanita Iyer, Amy O'Kruk and Curt Merrill

Two hearings are expected Monday related to former President Donald Trump's alleged election interference — one in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' case and the other related to special counsel Jack Smith's January 6 probe.

While both cases focus on the former president's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, here's how they differ:

January 6 case

Smith's team has accused Trump of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, including by using the violence on January 6, 2021, to call on lawmakers to "delay the certification" of results.

Trump is facing four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. He has pleaded not guilty.

If elected president and convicted in this case, Trump could potentially pardon himself.

Fulton County case

This case relates to Trump and his team's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia. It focuses on the so-called fake elector scheme, as well as calls from the former president and his allies to elected officials to "find votes" and decertify the election.

Willis has charged Trump and 18 others — including his former personal lawyer and ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — with 41 charges. The charges include violating the state's anti-racketeering law, and the indictment claims the defendants worked as an "enterprise" to overturn the election result.

Trump has been arrested and released on bond, but he has not yet been arraigned in this case.

If Trump is convicted and also elected president in 2024, he would not be able to pardon himself or his allies in this case — or dismiss the Fulton County prosecutors bringing the charges — as it would be a state conviction.

Read the full guide to Trump's legal cases here.

22 min ago

Analysis: Trump's mug shot is a reminder that he is beholden to a process in which he cannot control his own fate

From CNN's Stephen Collinson 

Millions and millions of photographs have been taken of American presidents. But none like this. 

The mug shot of Donald Trump instantly became one of the most iconic images of anyone who served as commander in chief. 

Inmate No. P01135809 stares out of the booking photo, his face like stone. It’s impossible to know what Trump is feeling. But the image, taken after his motorcade drove into the Fulton County jail, does not radiate his trademark bravado. His eyes bore into you. And the seal of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in a top corner is a reminder that Trump, for all his former power, is beholden to a process in which he cannot control his own fate. 

Trump’s mug shot – stark in its simplicity, in a way that must surely grate for an ex-reality star for whom image is everything – is a metaphor for an election in which the potential Republican nominee and possible next president is facing 91 criminal charges across four cases. Trump denies all wrongdoing and is innocent until proven guilty in all cases, including in the racketeering accusations in Georgia related to his bid to overturn the 2020 election. 

But in some ways, the mug shot, taken after he surrendered to the authorities Thursday, represents the inevitable culmination of a life that has stretched and buckled the constraints around the presidency and frequently strained the law. More broadly, for a man who built his legend through paparazzi snaps in the New York gossip columns and who prizes Time magazines bearing his face, the Georgia mug shot, for all its indignity, represents yet another new frontier of notoriety.

But for a nation still entangled in recriminations and fury whipped up by Trump, the photograph – which flashed immediately around the world – represents a special kind of tragedy. 

Read the full analysis. 

35 min ago

Trump was booked in Georgia, the fourth time he's faced criminal charges. Here's what to know and what's next

From CNN staff

Donald Trump became the first former president with a mug shot when he was placed under arrest at the Fulton County jail on Thursday evening. 

Trump was booked on 13 counts stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 presidential election result — including racketeering, conspiracy charges and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office. 

It is the fourth time this year the former president has faced criminal charges. 

Here’s what to know: 

• What happened: The former president arrived at the Fulton County jail on Thursday around 7:30 p.m. ET. After he surrendered, he was placed under arrest and booked on more than a dozen charges. His booking number was P01135809. A mug shot was also taken. 
• Released on bond: The booking process was completed in a little more than 20 minutes because the former president and his lawyers negotiated his consent bond agreement ahead of the surrender. Trump agreed to a $200,000 bond and other release conditions, including not using social media to target the co-defendants and witnesses in the case.
• What Trump said: The former president briefly addressed reporters before boarding his plane to return to New Jersey. He said, “I did nothing wrong,” and described the criminal case against him as “a travesty of justice.” 
• A new lawyer: Trump and his senior advisers briefly met with his new Georgia lawyer, Steven Sadow, on the plane to Atlanta. Trump replaced his previous lawyer, Drew Findling, just ahead of the surrender.
• The other defendants: By Friday afternoon, the other 18 defendants in the case had surrendered to Fulton County officials.
• What happens next: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has asked for Trump and the other 18 defendants to be arraigned next month. She has requested an October 23 trial date. Some legal experts say her timeline to try all 19 defendants at once, starting in two months, isn’t plausible.
• Tomorrow: Willis will lay out the first details of her sprawling anti-racketeering case against all 19 defendants at a court hearing in Atlanta.

50 min ago

All 19 defendants have surrendered in Fulton County

From CNN's Hannah Rabinowitz and Marshall Cohen

Stephen Lee, the Illinois-based pastor accused of intimidating a Georgia election worker after the 2020 election, surrendered at the Fulton County jail Friday afternoon – the last of the 19 defendants charged in the Georgia election interference case, including former President Donald Trump, to do so. 

All but one of the defendants surrendered after negotiating a bond deal with prosecutors, allowing for a fast booking process at the Fulton County jail. The 18 agreements allow each defendant to be out on bond during the course of their case. 

The bonds range from $10,000 to Trump’s $200,000 agreement. 

Each of the 18 defendants has also pledged to a standard set of conditions, including prohibitions on discussing the case with witnesses or one another. 

The one defendant who did not negotiate before turning himself in, Harrison Floyd, remains in law enforcement custody after a judge said she wouldn't set a bond Friday.

Here's a list of the 19 people charged in the Georgia case, according to the indictment: 

• Donald Trump, former US president 
• Rudy Giuliani, Trump lawyer 
• Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff 
• John Eastman, Trump lawyer 
• Kenneth Chesebro, pro-Trump lawyer 
• Jeffrey Clark, top Justice Department official 
• Jenna Ellis, Trump campaign lawyer 
• Robert Cheeley, lawyer who promoted fraud claims 
• Mike Roman, Trump campaign official 
• David Shafer, Georgia GOP chair and fake elector 
• Shawn Still, fake GOP elector 
• Stephen Lee, pastor tied to intimidation of election workers 
• Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump 
• Trevian Kutti, publicist tied to intimidation of election workers 
• Sidney Powell, Trump campaign lawyer 
• Cathy Latham, fake GOP elector tied to Coffee County breach 
• Scott Hall, tied to Coffee County election system breach 
• Misty Hampton, Coffee County elections supervisor 
• Ray Smith, Trump campaign attorney 

50 min ago

These are the post-election incidents that led to the Georgia charges against Trump and his allies 

From CNN's Katelyn Polantz

Georgia prosecutors allege that former President Donald Trump and his allies broke state laws during about a dozen separate incidents after the 2020 election, according to the indictment made public this month. 

There are 41 overall charges in the case, which was brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The first charge involves Georgia’s anti-racketeering law known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. But the next 40 non-racketeering charges stem from roughly a dozen key incidents after the 2020 election.  

The events, and the alleged crimes, break down this way: 

• Counts 2-4: Presentation of fraud claims to Georgia Senate: Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others are accused of making false statements about election fraud and pressuring members of the Georgia Senate while presenting to a legislative panel in early December 2020. 
• Count 5: Call to Georgia House speaker: Trump is charged with asking then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston to call a special session of the Georgia General Assembly. 
• Count 6-7: Presentation of fraud claims to Georgia House: Two charges accuse Giuliani and another man of breaking the law as they presented a video of vote counting at State Farm Arena, misconstruing it, to the Georgia House of Representatives.  
• Count 8-19: Fake electors scheme: This series of charges captures the fake elector scheme. A trio of Georgia residents were charged with crimes, including forgery. Trump, Giuliani, Trump lawyer John Eastman and others around Trump's campaign were charged with conspiracies related to the fake electors.  
• Count 20-21: First attempt to intimidate Atlanta election worker: Illinois pastor Stephen Lee faces two charges of attempting to influence witness Ruby Freeman, a 2020 election worker in Fulton County. Prosecutors say Lee went to Freeman's home, knocked on her door and spoke to a neighbor. He was “purporting to offer her help” with the intent to influence her testimony about the vote counting in Atlanta, the indictment said.  
• Count 22: Trying to get DOJ to intervene in Georgia: Jeffrey Clark is charged with an attempt to make false statements when he tried to persuade the Justice Department to make false assertions in Georgia about the validity of the election's results.  
• Count 23-26: Communication with Georgia Senate about voter fraud: These four charges capture efforts by Giuliani and others to influence and make false statements to the Georgia Senate on December 30, 2020, when he falsely told them that thousands of dead people and felons had voted in the election and smeared the vote-counting at State Farm Arena.  
• Count 27: Filing election lawsuit: This charge accuses Trump and Eastman of filing false information about votes in a federal court case that sought to block Georgia's election result. 
• Count 28-29: Phone call to Georgia's secretary of state: Trump and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows are charged based on a call they made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2, 2021, in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to flip the result.  
• Count 30-31: Second attempt to influence Atlanta election worker: Three people are charged with conspiracy to solicit false statements from Ruby Freeman and trying to influence her on January 4, 2021. 
• Count 32-37: Coffee County voting machine breach: Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and others are accused of conspiracies of computer theft, computer trespassing, invasion of privacy and election fraud related to the breach of voting machines in rural Coffee County, Georgia. 
• Count 38-39: Letter sent to Georgia secretary of state: Trump is charged with solicitation and false statements related to a letter he sent to Raffensperger in September 2021.  
• Count 40-41: Alleged lies to investigators and grand jury perjury: These are two charges that relate to the course of the investigation. Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer is accused of lying to investigators with the Fulton County district attorney's office. Robert Cheeley is also accused of perjuring himself before the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury. 

Two hearings are expected Monday related to former President Donald Trump's alleged election interference — one in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' case and the other related to special counsel Jack Smith's January 6 probe.

While both cases focus on the former president's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, here's how they differ:

January 6 case

Smith's team has accused Trump of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, including by using the violence on January 6, 2021, to call on lawmakers to "delay the certification" of results.

Trump is facing four federal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. He has pleaded not guilty.

If elected president and convicted in this case, Trump could potentially pardon himself.

Fulton County case

This case relates to Trump and his team's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia. It focuses on the so-called fake elector scheme, as well as calls from the former president and his allies to elected officials to "find votes" and decertify the election.

Willis has charged Trump and 18 others — including his former personal lawyer and ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — with 41 charges. The charges include violating the state's anti-racketeering law, and the indictment claims the defendants worked as an "enterprise" to overturn the election result.

Trump has been arrested and released on bond, but he has not yet been arraigned in this case.

If Trump is convicted and also elected president in 2024, he would not be able to pardon himself or his allies in this case — or dismiss the Fulton County prosecutors bringing the charges — as it would be a state conviction.

Read the full guide to Trump's legal cases here.

Millions and millions of photographs have been taken of American presidents. But none like this. 

The mug shot of Donald Trump instantly became one of the most iconic images of anyone who served as commander in chief. 

Inmate No. P01135809 stares out of the booking photo, his face like stone. It’s impossible to know what Trump is feeling. But the image, taken after his motorcade drove into the Fulton County jail, does not radiate his trademark bravado. His eyes bore into you. And the seal of the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in a top corner is a reminder that Trump, for all his former power, is beholden to a process in which he cannot control his own fate. 

Trump’s mug shot – stark in its simplicity, in a way that must surely grate for an ex-reality star for whom image is everything – is a metaphor for an election in which the potential Republican nominee and possible next president is facing 91 criminal charges across four cases. Trump denies all wrongdoing and is innocent until proven guilty in all cases, including in the racketeering accusations in Georgia related to his bid to overturn the 2020 election. 

But in some ways, the mug shot, taken after he surrendered to the authorities Thursday, represents the inevitable culmination of a life that has stretched and buckled the constraints around the presidency and frequently strained the law. More broadly, for a man who built his legend through paparazzi snaps in the New York gossip columns and who prizes Time magazines bearing his face, the Georgia mug shot, for all its indignity, represents yet another new frontier of notoriety.

But for a nation still entangled in recriminations and fury whipped up by Trump, the photograph – which flashed immediately around the world – represents a special kind of tragedy. 

Read the full analysis. 

Donald Trump became the first former president with a mug shot when he was placed under arrest at the Fulton County jail on Thursday evening. 

Trump was booked on 13 counts stemming from his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 presidential election result — including racketeering, conspiracy charges and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office. 

It is the fourth time this year the former president has faced criminal charges. 

Here’s what to know: 

Stephen Lee, the Illinois-based pastor accused of intimidating a Georgia election worker after the 2020 election, surrendered at the Fulton County jail Friday afternoon – the last of the 19 defendants charged in the Georgia election interference case, including former President Donald Trump, to do so. 

All but one of the defendants surrendered after negotiating a bond deal with prosecutors, allowing for a fast booking process at the Fulton County jail. The 18 agreements allow each defendant to be out on bond during the course of their case. 

The bonds range from $10,000 to Trump’s $200,000 agreement. 

Each of the 18 defendants has also pledged to a standard set of conditions, including prohibitions on discussing the case with witnesses or one another. 

The one defendant who did not negotiate before turning himself in, Harrison Floyd, remains in law enforcement custody after a judge said she wouldn't set a bond Friday.

Here's a list of the 19 people charged in the Georgia case, according to the indictment: 

Georgia prosecutors allege that former President Donald Trump and his allies broke state laws during about a dozen separate incidents after the 2020 election, according to the indictment made public this month. 

There are 41 overall charges in the case, which was brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The first charge involves Georgia’s anti-racketeering law known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. But the next 40 non-racketeering charges stem from roughly a dozen key incidents after the 2020 election.  

The events, and the alleged crimes, break down this way: