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Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100

The Truth News — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 02:33:58 +0000

Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100

celebrated champion of human rights, dies at 100

The 100-year-old was the only U.S. president from Georgia.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Passes Away at 100

Dec. 29, 2024

ATLANTA (Dec. 29, 2024) — Jimmy Carter, 39^th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. He was 100, the longest-lived president in U.S. history.

President Carter is survived by his children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Rosalynn, and one grandchild.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

There will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private interment in Plains, Georgia. The final arrangements for President Carter’s state funeral, including all public events and motorcade routes, are still pending. The schedule will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region at https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/statefunerals/.

Members of the public are encouraged to visit the official tribute website to the life of President Carter at www.jimmycartertribute.org. This site includes the official online condolence book as well as print and visual biographical materials commemorating his life.

The Carter family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to The Carter Center, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway N.E., Atlanta, GA 30307.

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Media Notes:

All logistics and credentialing related to coverage of the official ceremonies will be handled by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region. The Carter Center is not credentialing media to cover official ceremonies.

Rights-cleared photos and video of President Carter’s life, provided by The Carter Center and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, will be available at www.jimmycartertribute.org/downloads.

Contact: media@cartercenter.org

The Carter Center
Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide. source

Former President Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, whose post-presidential work as a humanitarian set a modern standard for the kind of legacy presidents can craft after their time in the White House, has died at 100 years old.

“Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia,” the Carter Center announced Sunday in a social media post.

His son Chip Carter said in a statement that he was a “hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love.”

“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs,” Chip Carter said.

The Carter Center said public observances will be held in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private internment in Plains. A final schedule is still being formalized and will be released at this link, the Carter Center said.

The public is encouraged to visit the Carter Center’s official tribute website for President Carter, where an online condolence book as well as materials commemorating his life are available. In lieu of flowers, President Carter’s family is asking for donations to be made to The Carter Center, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway NE, Atlanta, GA, 30307.

Turning 100 on Oct. 1, 2024, President Carter reached a milestone as the longest-living U.S. president that no other person to hold the title has reached. He is the only president from Georgia.

Carter went on hospice care in February 2023, and lived another 22 months at home in his cherished Plains, Georgia, a testament to his advocacy of hospice as comfortable and dignified end-of-life care. His passing follows over a year after the death of his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, at 96 years old. The couple forged the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history, an iconic love story as well as an enduring political and philanthropic partnership.

Carter was president from 1977-81, a one-term executive whose time in the White House was marked by an ambition for more peaceful relations with the world at a time of high Cold War tensions, but also economic stagnation and geopolitical challenges.

His term’s highs included a masterstroke in diplomacy with the ushering of a landmark Middle East peace deal, the Camp David Accords. However, rampant inflation and world events – the Iran Hostage Crisis chief among them, as well as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – hindered his standing as the nation’s commander in chief.

He was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 re-election bid – but rather than marking the end of Carter’s public life, it paved the way for the humanitarian contributions that would define him far more than anything he accomplished in office.

He and Rosalynn established the Carter Center in Atlanta in 1982, an organization through which the former president would do much to, as he hoped for in his inaugural address, see that “the nations of the world might say that we had built a lasting peace, based not on weapons of war, but on international policies that reflect our own most precious values.”

The Carter Center’s work over the years has touched on advancing human rights, forging peace talks in some of the world’s most devastated conflict zones, promoting democracy and observing elections throughout the world, and disease prevention and eradication – including a decades-long campaign that has resulted in the near-elimination of Guinea worm.

Carter’s personal volunteerism and service to community were also noteworthy. He worked for decades with Habitat for Humanity, participating on a build as recently as 2019 even as he was recovering from a fall at his home that required 14 stitches and gave him a black eye. And he was famous for his Sunday school lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains.

Crowning his post-presidential humanitarian legacy, in 2002 Carter was named the Nobel Peace Prize honoree. The Nobel committee highlighted his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

President Carter once said, “We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes – and we must.”

Early beginnings

James Earl Carter, Jr. was born in rural Plains, Georgia on Oct. 1, 1924 to James Earl Carter, Sr. and Lillian Gordy Carter. Famously, the family business was peanut farming, and the Baptist Church was another mainstay of his upbringing.

After growing up as a farmhand and promising student, Carter attended Georgia Southwestern and Georgia Tech before heading to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. In one of his life-defining moments, the previous summer he had been home from the academy and noticed his sister Ruth walking with a friend, Rosalynn Smith. He asked Rosalynn out – and quickly fell in love with her, with his first proposal famously refused by Rosalynn because she had promised her father, on his deathbed, she would finish college before getting married.

But it did not deter their love story – roughly a year after that first date, they were wed on July 7, 1946.

Married life, the military, and his road to politics

The couple mainly spent their first married years in Norfolk, Virginia. Jimmy was in the Navy and assigned to the USS Wyoming. The day before Independence Day in 1947, they had their first son, John Williams, whom they named after Rosalynn’s grandfather. In 1950 while stationed in Hawaii, James Earl III was born and named after Jimmy and his father, James Earl Sr. Two years later, Donnell Jeffrey became their third boy. It would be 15 years before they had their only baby girl, Amy Lynn in 1967.

In one 1952 episode that has taken on legendary status in recent years, then-Lt. Carter led a team in cleanup efforts at the world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown in Canada. He left the Navy in 1953 upon the death of his father, returning to Plains to take up the reins of running the peanut farm.

Back in Plains, Jimmy and Rosalynn operated the farm and a seed and supply store called Carter’s Warehouse. He slowly built a profile as a community leader and, in 1962, embarked on his remarkable political life with a successful run for the Georgia Senate. After serving two terms, he ran unsuccessfully for governor – but came back in four years’ time and became Georgia’s 76th governor.

Governor Carter & presidential campaign

Carter was inaugurated on Jan. 12, 1971, and famously declared in his address, “The time for racial discrimination is over.”

It was an outspoken declaration that caught many observers by surprise. As a white legislator in an Old Confederacy state, he had been more muted on civil rights issues earlier in his political rise and at times positioned himself as a conservative Democrat. While there were signs of Carter’s more sympathetic racial attitudes – such as his advocacy for educational reorganization as a state senator, considered a step toward desegregation – he also endorsed during the 1970 gubernatorial campaign “local control” over federal intervention, which biographer Jonathan Alter has described as a “code-word campaign.”

As governor, Carter pursued reforms of Georgia’s education system as well as the state bureaucracy, extending to his own appointments – another signal in his turn toward promoting equality.

“He appointed more women and minorities to his own staff, to major state policy boards and agencies, and to the judiciary than all of his predecessors combined,” the New Georgia Encyclopedia states.

He also advanced mental health as a priority – at the urging of Rosalynn, for whom the issue became a life-defining cause – in a way that was ahead of his time, in 1971 creating the Governor’s Commission to Improve Services for Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped Georgians on which the future first lady would serve.

Jimmy Carter announced his presidential candidacy in December 1974 – more than a year away from the 1976 Democratic primary. Almost a complete unknown to the rest of the country, Carter was initially “dismissed as an absurdity by the elders of his party” the New York Times reported at the time.

His campaign was aided first by the decision of former Vice President Hubert Humphrey to not seek the nomination, and then Carter rose past other, more well-known candidates such as California Gov. Jerry Brown and Alabama Gov. George Wallace thanks to dogged grassroots campaigning highlighted by the “Peanut Brigade” of nationwide volunteers, as well as a reputation as as the “rock & roll” candidate that helped him crack the national consciousness.

Carter was also one of the first Democrats to court a coalition with Black voters in the wake of the 60s civil rights era. He forged an alliance with Martin Luther King Jr.’s family and capped the 1976 Democratic Party convention with a closing speech from Martin Luther King Sr., MLK’s father, and sharing a moment with Coretta Scott King.

“As I’ve said many times before, we can have an American President who does not govern with negativism and fear for the future, but with vigor and vision and aggressive leadership, a President who’s not isolated from the people but who feels your pain and shares your dreams and takes his strength and his wisdom and his courage from you,” he said upon accepting the Democratic nomination. “I see an America on the move again, united, a diverse and vital and tolerant nation, entering our third century with pride and confidence, an America that lives up to the majesty of our Constitution and the simple decency of our people. This is the America we want. This is the America that we will have.”

The White House

On Nov. 2, 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected the 39th president of the United States, defeating incumbent Republican Gerald Ford – who had ascended to the presidency on Richard Nixon’s resignation – with 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 240.

In office, the optimism of Carter’s Democratic acceptance speech met the hard realities of international affairs and economic headwinds.

The economy was in recession when he took office, and inflation was a deep thorn in his administration’s side throughout his term. He targeted inflation early in his presidency, but it spiked – arguably, outside of his control – every year of his term, to more than 13% by 1980.

The 1979 oil crisis – largely stemming from shortages after the Iranian Revolution and punctuated by images of gas stations with no gas and Americans waiting in long lines – underscored the economic frustrations that undermined Carter’s re-election hopes.

On Nov. 4, 1979, 66 American diplomats and citizens were also taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, and Carter’s inability to resolve the crisis – the failed rescue mission Operation Eagle Claw in April 1980 resulted in eight dead American servicemen – dealt a serious blow to his political standing.

Additional challenges included the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in March of 1979, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year in December.

Capturing the difficult mood of the time, a 1979 address of Carter’s would become somewhat infamously deemed the “malaise” speech, as he spoke of a national “crisis of confidence.”

Carter’s tenure as president was, however, also marked by a number of accomplishments. He created two new cabinet-level departments – the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He sought warmer relations in Latin America, and – while not without political controversy – achieved a diplomatic priority with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which gave Panama control of the Panama Canal.

And the Camp David Accords – a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in large part negotiated personally by Carter – remains to this day one of the most significant achievements in the long, tumultuous Arab-Israeli peace process.

Carter also made strides for Black enfranchisement, making good on many of his promises to the Kings who helped him rise to the presidency. Carter opened government contracts to Black-owned businesses and appointed record numbers of Black citizens to executive and judicial posts. He steered more public money to historically Black colleges and opposed tax breaks for discriminatory private schools. He also helped establish government observances of King’s birthday and enabled the federal historic site in Atlanta encompassing King’s birthplace, burial site and the family’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Perhaps counterintuitively, a large component of Carter’s economic policy would appear conservative by today’s politics. He deregulated several industries, such as trucking and airlines – for which he actually has been praised in recent years by some conservatives – and his plan to fight inflation announced in early 1980 called for a huge slate of federal spending cuts.

Inflation would subside greatly in the years when he would have served a second term, but in the end, Carter’s popularity had diminished too greatly with the American people by the time of the 1980 election. He lost his bid for a second term in the White House to Republican Ronald Reagan in a landslide.

The return to Georgia

“As I return home to the South where I was born and raised, I am looking forward to the opportunity to reflect and further to assess – I hope with accuracy – the circumstances of our times,” he said in his farewell address. “I intend to give our new president my support, and I intend to work as a citizen, as I have worked in this office as president, for the values this nation was founded to secure.”

He may not have realized it in that moment, but it would be that work as an ordinary citizen that secured his place in history more than any of the events in office that he faced – which he noted in the same address often are “controversial, broad in scope, and which do not arouse the natural support of a political majority.”

Carter, at 100, lived longer than any other former president. And his marriage to Rosalynn is the longest presidential marriage in U.S. history. He is survived by his three sons, daughter and 25 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Once, in an interview with USA Today, Carter revealed what he hoped his legacy would be. The quote is telling – touching on the universalist humanitarian themes that drove his political ambitions, but not forgetting the personal humility and devotion to community and family that endeared him to so many.

“Human rights and peace are two things I would like to be remembered for,” he said. “And of course, being a good grandfather.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story. source

Jimmy Carter dies at 100: Tributes pour in, memorials planned for Atlanta, DC

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States who dedicated much of his life to humanitarian causes, died in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, his family announced Sunday.

The former president was known for his work with philanthropic organizations like Habitat for Humanity and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

In the White House from 1977 to 1981, Carter negotiated the landmark Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt, transferred the Panama Canal to Panamanian ownership, dramatically expanded public lands in Alaska and established formal diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.

Carter had been in ailing health during the past decade and had been in hospice care for more than a year when he died.

Keep up with live coverage from the USA TODAY Network as tributes to Carter pour in from around the world.

Biden on Jimmy Carter: ‘The world lost a remarkable leader‘

On Sunday night, President Joe Biden honored his “dear friend” Jimmy Carter, pointing to his accomplishments as president and his time as Georgia’s governor.

“This is a sad day, but it brings back an incredible amount of good memories,” Biden said during remarks in Christiansted, Saint Croix, where the president is currently on vacation. “Today, America and the world, in my view, lost a remarkable leader.”

Biden was on the phone with Carter’s family before delivering remarks, he added.

The president shared his fondest memory with Carter, saying it was when he first endorsed his candidacy for president.

“My fondest memory of Jimmy Carter was when he grabbed me by the arm and said, ‘I need you to help me with my campaign,'” Biden said. “I said, ‘I’ve only been around a couple years, Mr. Governor.'”

Biden said he wasn’t sure whether he would make a difference in supporting Carter’s candidacy, but the then-Georgia governor said he would.

“I told him when I was endorsing him, that it was not only his policies, but his character, his decency, the honor he communicates to everyone,” Biden said, adding that he also appreciated how “very kind” Carter was to he and Jill Biden after his son Beau Biden died.

Biden later commended Carter as a “model of what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose” and how he treated people with respect.

“Jimmy Carter is an example of just simple decency,” Biden said. “And I think that’s what the rest of the world looks to America for.”

Biden added: “Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone that needs something and just keep walking? Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or where they talk? I can’t.”

– Rebecca Morin

Harris says Carter’s ‘life is a testament to the power of service’

Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that “Jimmy Carter’s life is a testament to the power of service — as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy, the 76th Governor of Georgia, and the 39th President of the United States. He reminded our nation and the world that there is strength in decency and compassion.”

Harris also reflected on Carter’s efforts to protect the environment, promote government transparency and work toward peace around the world.

“I had the privilege of knowing President Carter for years. I will always remember his kindness, wisdom, and profound grace. His life and legacy continue to inspire me — and will inspire generations to come. Our world is a better place because of President Carter,” Harris said.

Jimmy Carter told his son, Chip Carter, earlier this year “I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” in the 2024 election the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The Carter Center confirmed to USA TODAY the former president voted by mail for the vice president in Georgia.

− Marina Pitofsky and Sarah D. Wire

Obamas reflect on Carter’s faith, ‘decency’

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama on Sunday remembered Carter’s commitment to his faith, reflecting on his decades of teaching Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia and the worshippers who flocked to the church.

“Some who came to hear him speak were undoubtedly there because of what President Carter accomplished in his four years in the White House – the Camp David Accords he brokered that reshaped the Middle East; the work he did to diversify the federal judiciary, including nominating a pioneering women’s rights activist and lawyer named Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the federal bench; the environmental reforms he put in place, becoming one of the first leaders in the world to recognize the problem of climate change,” the Obamas said.

“Others were likely there because of what President Carter accomplished in the longest, and most impactful, post-presidency in American history,” they said, noting “But I’m willing to bet that many people in that church on Sunday morning were there, at least in part, because of something more fundamental: President Carter’s decency.

Bushes say Carter ‘dignified the office’ of the presidency

Former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush on Sunday said Carter “dignified the office” of the presidency during his lifetime of service.

“James Earl Carter, Jr., was a man of deeply held convictions. He was loyal to his family, his community, and his country. President Carter dignified the office,” they said.

“And his efforts to leave behind a better world didn’t end with the presidency. His work with Habitat for Humanity and the Carter Center set an example of service that will inspire Americans for generations,” they added.

− Marina Pitofsky

Clintons say Carter worked for ‘a better, fairer world’

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday praised Jimmy Carter for his efforts for “a better, fairer world.”

“Hillary and I mourn the passing of President Jimmy Carter and give thanks for his long, good life,” the two said in a statement. “Guided by his faith, President Carter lived to serve others— until the very end.”

The Clintons met Carter in 1975 and were “proud, early supporters of his Presidential campaign,” they said in their statement. Bill Clinton said he was proud to have presented Carter, and his wife Rosalynn, with the Medal of Freedom in 1999.

Bill and Hillary Clinton in the statement highlighted his work throughout his political career, from state senator, to president and to his efforts post presidency.

Bidens reflect on Carter’s ‘compassion and moral clarity’

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden in a statement said “America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” in the wake of Carter’s death.

“With his compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us. He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe.”

− Marina Pitofsky

Trump says Americans owe Carter ‘a debt of gratitude’

President-elect Donald Trump shared in a post on Truth Social that “Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as President understand this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the Greatest Nation in History.”

Trump frequently criticized Carter on the campaign trail. For example, earlier this year he told a crowd of supporters in Wisconsin “Jimmy Carter is the happiest man because Jimmy Carter is considered a brilliant president by comparison,” while criticizing President Joe Biden.

Jason Carter, Jimmy Carter’s grandson, pays musical tribute to his grandfather

Jason Carter, Jimmy Carter’s eldest grandson, shared a musical tribute to his grandfather on Sunday, simply sharing a link to a performance of Jason Isbell’s song “Last of My Kind.”

The chorus of the song tells listeners “I’m the last of my kind, Try to find another just like me, You’ll be looking for a real long time.”

− Marina Pitofsky

Jimmy Carter funeral: Former president’s viewing arrangements, planning underway

Citizens across the globe praised former President Jimmy Carter as family members prepared for a memorial journey from Plains, Georgia, to Atlanta and Washington, D.C., before returning for burial at his home in south Georgia.

According to the Carter Center, public memorial observances will take place in both Atlanta and Washington, D.C., for the 39th president of the United States, who died Sunday at 100.

Final arrangements for Carter’s state funeral are pending, with a formal schedule to come from the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region. The Carter Center urged members of the public to visit the official tribute website, which includes an online condolence book and other materials commemorating the life of the nation’s longest-living former president and only one to reach the century milestone. source

Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100 years old

James Earl Carter, Jr., the 39th President of the United States and 76th governor of Georgia, has died at 100-years-old. Known from boyhood as Jimmy, Carter rose from the dusty peanut fields of Plains, Georgia, to the White House. After his presidency, Carter dedicated himself to public service, working tirelessly for peace in the Middle East, and helping to house millions of people around the globe through his work with nonprofit builder Habitat for Humanity. For decades, he was a celebrated Sunday school teacher at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. Carter was married to his wife Rosalynn for 77 years before she died on Nov. 19, 2023.

Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital, where his mother worked as a nurse. His father, like generations of Carter men before him, was a cotton farmer who did not graduate high school. But the elder Carter was thrifty and operated a successful general store. When the future president was four years old, the family bought some cotton farming land in nearby Archery. Their neighbors were black sharecroppers. Archery did not have electricity until 1938.

Carter spent his boyhood working the family farm and going to school. As a teenager, his father entrusted his eldest son with one acre of farmland. On it, Carter grew, packed and sold peanuts, his first foray into the business he would later depend upon. Carter also broke the family trend of leaving school early. He attended Plains High School in 1941, where he developed a life-long love of reading and learning.

After high school, Carter enrolled at nearby Georgia Southwestern College in Americus. The next year he transferred to Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and in 1943 Carter earned admission into the Naval Academy. It was while attending the Academy that Carter fell in love with Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister’s. The pair married shortly after Carter’s graduation in 1946. They were inseparable ever after. Carter’s Naval career spanned nine years, and the Carters lived on both coasts during his various deployments in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. While Carter was training to serve as an officer on one of the Navy’s first nuclear submarines, tragedy struck. His father died. The Carters returned home to Plains.

celebrated champion of human rights, dies at 100

Hard work brought the Carters through tough times in Plains. His father, who had served in the Georgia House of Representatives and ran a thriving business, was successful, but he also had many heirs and forgave debts. Jimmy and Rosalyn, now with three sons in tow, lived for a year in public housing, the only president to do so. With his engineering background, Carter set out expanding the family business, and with Rosalynn’s help, they grew successful. By 1961, Carter was a prominent man in the community and Chairman of the Sumter County school board, where he spoke in favor of school integration, stoking the ire of the local White Citizens Council who boycotted his peanut warehouse. But Carter pressed on. In 1962 he ran for state Senate, and after proving the initial vote was fraudulent ran in a second election and won. In 1966, after a failed bid for Governor, Carter found solace and new direction in his faith. He also plotted his future political career.

Carter won his 1970 bid for governor, and on his inauguration the next year he declared, “the time of racial discrimination is over,” shocking Georgians accustomed to the state’s long tradition of racist leadership. The statement also shocked many segregationist Georgians who had supported Carter, particularly after Carter endorsed segregationist Lester Maddox for Lieutenant Governor. Carter later called his campaign, during which he leaned into the anxiety many white Georgians felt over civil rights, the most shameful period of his life. But Carter’s inauguration did mark him out as a new kind of southern politician, and he was featured in Time magazine as a progressive “New South” governor. Carter and Maddox spent the next four years feuding. Carter worked to accelerate school integration, even as he slimmed down Georgia’s bureaucracy. Using his engineering background, he vetoed dam projects along the Flint River after personally reviewing the plans.

Georgia’s constitution limited him to a single term, and Carter’s time in federal office would be equally short. He ran successfully for president in 1976, with Republicans still reeling from the Watergate scandal that had pushed Richard Nixon out of the White House and marred Gerald Ford’s political future. Carter’s team came to Washington with little experience on the national stage, which stymied much of the policy progress the new president hoped to achieve, including a failed attempt at universal healthcare. As the oil crisis dragged the economy into a slump, the revolutionary government in Iran took 54 American citizens hostage and held them for 444 days. Carter went into his reelection campaign with little to show for his efforts, a struggling economy, and more than a year of foreign policy embarrassment. A charismatic former actor and governor of California, Ronald Reagan, swept Carter out of the White House in a historic landslide.

Again facing political failure, Carter now turned squarely to public service. In 1982, he founded the Carter Center, through which the former president worked to advance human rights and ameliorate suffering around the world. The previous year, Carter began working on peace in the Middle East, and over the decades met with both Israeli and Arab leaders, easing tensions and paving the path of peace. In the 1990s, Carter was a key figure in brokering peace throughout eastern Africa. Carter joined Nelson Mandela and other world leaders to work on peace and human rights, working in Darfur, Sudan, Cyprus, Korea, and the Middle East. Outside of politics, generations of Americans might best recognize Carter wearing a hard hat, due to his decades-long service with Habitat for Humanity. Even in the final year of his life, before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down much of American public life, you could often find Carter, hammer in hand, helping to build homes.

His activity in domestic politics was often quiet, preferring to work with presiding administrations as an overseas ambassador for peace and human rights. Carter passed on chances to run again for president in both 1984 and 1988. In 1992, when asked, Carter spoke favorably of then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton as a potential candidate for the White House. Carter spoke at Clinton’s nominating convention and was frequently consulted by the fellow Democratic president. Carter frequently criticized Republican administrations, criticizing George H. W. Bush for his response to Hurricane Katrina and Donald Trump for his immigration policies.

Jimmy’s Carter’s post-White House life was based in his small hometown of Plains. There he and Rosalynn were active members in the community. Jimmy Carter frequently taught Sunday school at Marantha Baptist Church, his classes often drawing large crowds of admirers. Even as the prevailing political winds in Plains made Carter’s political views unpopular, he was widely adored by the community, which in his lifetime made his boyhood farm in Archery and part of the Plains High School museums to the president’s long life and diligent work helping other people.

It is for his service to others that Carter will be most remembered. In his personal life, he was a man dedicated to family and faith. In his public life, he lived out the promise of his faith by serving others, in Plains, across America and across the globe. source

Former President Jimmy Carter, celebrated champion of human rights, dies at 100

Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president known as a champion of international human rights both during and after his White House tenure and who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his lifetime of dedication to that cause, has died at 100, ABC News has learned.

Carter’s death was also announced by the Carter Center on X, which posted “Our founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, passed away this afternoon in Plains, Georgia.” The Carter Center also shared a tribute site for the late president.

Carter, whose wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96, is survived by the couple’s children — John William (Jack), James Earl III (Chip) and Donnel Jeffrey (Jeff); and their daughter, Amy Lynn.

“Today, America and the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman, and humanitarian,” President Biden said in a statement in reaction to Carter’s death. “With his compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us. He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe.”

Calling him “a man of great character and courage, hope and optimism” and “a great American,” Biden said he was “ordering an official state funeral to be held in Washington, D.C. for James Earl Carter, Jr., 39th President of the United States, 76th Governor of Georgia, Lieutenant of the United States Navy, graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and favorite son of Plains, Georgia, who gave his full life in service to God and country.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called Carter “one of our most humble and devoted public servants” who “personified the true meaning of leadership through service, through compassion, and through integrity.”

“May his memory be a blessing and an enduring reminder of what it means to truly serve,” Schumer’s statement concluded.

“President Carter served during times of tension and uncertainty, both at home and abroad. But his calm spirit and deep faith seemed unshakeable,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement, in part. “As Jimmy Carter is reunited with his beloved Rosalynn, our thoughts and prayers are with their children, Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the millions of Americans whose lives were touched by his service.”

“The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude,” President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement, adding that he and wife Melania urged everyone to keep Carter’s family “in their hearts and prayers.”

Former president Jimmy Carter is seen in Philadelphia, July 10, 2015.

Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Carter had endured several health challenges in recent years. In 2019, he underwent surgery after breaking his hip in a fall. Four years earlier, Carter was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain, though just months later, he announced that he no longer needed treatment due to a new type of cancer therapy he’d been receiving.

In February of 2023, the Carter Center, the organization founded by the former president to promote human rights worldwide, announced that Carter, with “the full support of his family and his medical team,” would begin receiving hospice care at home.

“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the Carter Center said in a statement.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter attends a tribute service for his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, at Glenn Memorial Church in Atlanta on Nov. 28, 2023.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Carter attended the public memorial service for his late wife on Nov. 28, 2023, some nine months after the announcement that he’d entered hospice care. Frail and in a wheelchair, he didn’t speak at the memorial. Instead, his daughter, Amy, spoke on his behalf, reading from a letter Carter sent to Rosalynn some 75 years earlier, when he was away serving in the Navy.

“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I have been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are,” the letter read, in part. “While I am away, I try to convince myself that you really are not, could not be, as sweet and beautiful as I remember. But when I see you, I fall in love with you all over again.”

Carter turned 100 years old on Oct. 1, 2024, an occasion that was celebrated with events both at the Carter Center in Atlanta, and in Carter’s Plains, Georgia hometown, though Carter himself was by that time too frail to attend them. Just 16 days later, the Carter Center announced that the former president had cast his ballot by mail in the presidential election. Carter’s grandson, Jason, previously told ABC News that his grandfather would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Former president Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn prior to a game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Sept. 30, 2018 in Atlanta.

Scott Cunningham/Getty Images, FILE

The son of a Georgia peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter first appeared on the national political scene in 1976 with a toothy grin and the simple words that would become his trademark: “My name is Jimmy Carter, and I’m running for president.”

Among his administration’s most notable achievements were the Camp David Accords, which Carter brokered between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978, and that led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty the following year. Carter’s time in office also saw the first efforts toward developing a U.S. policy for energy independence.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin join hands after the Camp David Accords September 18, 1978 in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC.

David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

However, the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held hostage in Iran for a total 444 days, beginning Nov. 4, 1979, battered Carter’s 1980 reelection campaign. He won just six states and the District of Columbia, for a total of 49 electoral votes compared to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan’s 489 electoral votes. Reagan also defeated Carter by more than eight million ballots in the popular vote.

Though political pundits of the era predicted he would be remembered as an average, one-term president, it’s often been observed that Carter’s reputation became more distinguished after he left the White House. He continued to champion international human rights and peace efforts, prompting Time magazine to declare in 1989, just eight years after the end of his presidency, that Carter “may be the best former president America has ever had.”

Former President Jimmy Carter holds up his Nobel Peace Prize, Dec. 10, 2002, in Oslo, Norway.

Arne Knudsen/Getty Images

Carter was the third U.S. president, following Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received in 2002 after creating the Carter Center. Barack Obama became the fourth, in 2009. In selecting Carter for the honor, the Nobel Committee cited “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

Peanut farmer to politician

James Earl Carter Jr. was born in Plains, Georgia, on Oct. 1, 1924, to James Earl Carter Sr., a peanut farmer and businessman, and Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse who famously became known as ‘Miss Lillian.’ Though he was the first American president born in a hospital, Carter was raised in a farmhouse without indoor plumbing or electricity.

Carter graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1946 and after spending seven years as an officer — he volunteered for submarine duty and was honorably discharged in 1953 — he returned to farming. He began his political career in 1962 when he was elected to the first of two terms as a state senator in Georgia. During his tenure, he promised to read every bill that came to a vote, even taking a speed-reading class to keep up.

After an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1966, Carter fell into a spiritual crisis, emerging as a born-again Christian. He later recalled this period as one that changed his life dramatically, saying on the campaign trail: “Since then, I’ve had an inner peace and inner conviction and assurance that transformed my life for the better.”

Armed with this renewed energy, Carter launched an aggressive gubernatorial campaign and won the office in 1970.

President Jimmy Carter is applauded by First Lady Rosalynn Carter and supporters after conceding defeat to Reagan during the 1980 presidential election, Nov 4, 1980.

Wally Mcnamee/Corbis via Getty Images, FILE

Carter announced his bid for the presidency in December 1974 as his term as governor of Georgia was ending. A relative unknown, Carter won early victories in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He became more well-known as he steadily picked up delegates and beat back challenges from Rep. Morris ‘Mo’ Udall and U.S. Sen. Henry M. Jackson to secure the nomination.

The deeply religious candidate caused controversy late in his campaign when he told an interviewer from Playboy magazine, “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” While there was considerable criticism of that line and some of the other language Carter used in the interview, then-U.S. Rep. Andrew Young, whom Carter later appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carter had “taken care of his religion problem once and for all.”

In November 1976, Carter defeated President Gerald Ford with 297 electoral votes to Ford’s 241 to become the 39th president.

Energy and economy

From the moment of his inauguration, Carter set a different tone in Washington. He avoided formality, taking the oath of office as ‘Jimmy’ instead of ‘James Earl’ Carter. He and the first lady even walked the mile-and-a-half inaugural parade route to the White House, rather than ride in a limousine.

President Jimmy Carter is pictured at the conference of Otan in London, May 10, 1977.

Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Once in the Oval Office, Carter continued to bring a common touch to the presidency. He discontinued limousine service for presidential staff and even personally controlled the schedule of the White House tennis courts. As America weathered an energy crisis, Carter ordered his staff to turn the White House thermostats down in the winter and up in the summer, an energy-conscious practice he continued throughout his public career.

Focus on foreign policy

Carter struggled with domestic policies, fighting near-record highs in inflation and unemployment. Among his few victories was the establishment of the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, the latter in response to a continued energy shortage at the time.

President Jimmy Carter in Oval Office during TV Speech, April 18, 1977.

Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Yet, while his domestic policies drew criticism, Carter found widespread success in foreign affairs. His administration attracted worldwide praise for distinguishing itself with a firm commitment to international human rights. Unlike his predecessors, Carter did not hesitate to criticize repressive right-wing regimes, saying in a 1977 commencement speech at Notre Dame, “Because we know that democracy works, we can reject the arguments of those rulers who deny human rights to their people.”

The Iran Hostage Crisis and the end of an administration

The largest stain on Carter’s foreign policy record came in November 1979, when a group of Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took hostage 52 American citizens. The militants demanded the return to Iran of the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi from the U.S., where he was seeking medical attention, to stand trial.

Carter initially responded to the crisis by cutting diplomatic ties with Iran and blocking imports from the country. But when those measures failed, in April 1980, he ordered a secret armed rescue mission. It ended in disaster when several American helicopters malfunctioned and two aircraft collided, killing eight U.S. servicemen.

MORE: Video Jan. 20, 1981: The Iranian hostage crisis ends

The hostages were freed Jan. 20, 1980, after 444 days in captivity. Perhaps as a final insult to Carter, Iran released the hostages just minutes after President Ronald Reagan had been sworn in. The new president sent Carter to Germany to greet the hostages.

Post-presidency legacy of public service

It wasn’t until years after he left the White House that many came to appreciate Carter. The former president embarked on a new phase of his career in public service, devoting his days to peacemaking and humanitarian efforts.

“He has made the post-presidency an institution that it had never been before,” said historian and author Steve Hochman, who helped establish the Carter Center. “He has been the most successful, most influential former president in American history.”

Among the organization’s many efforts, the Carter Center helped spearhead a successful campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, a debilitating parasitic infection spread by drinking water contaminated with the worm’s larvae. In 1986, the disease affected 3.5 million people per year in 21 African countries, but by 2017, it had been reduced by 99.99%, to just 30 cases, according to the Carter Center.

Carter told ABC News in 2015 that his goal was to eradicate the disease entirely. “I think this is going to be a great achievement for — not for me — but for the people that have been afflicted and for the entire world to see diseases like this eradicated,” Carter said.

Former President Jimmy Carter works on one of the homes at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project for Habitat for Humanity in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, July 10, 2017.

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Carter also became the highest-profile supporter of Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit devoted to creating affordable housing. The Carters personally helped to build, renovate and repair 4,390 homes in 14 countries, according to the organization, which also called Carter and wife Rosalynn “two of the world’s most distinguished humanitarians.”

Guided by ‘deep Christian faith’

In addition to his extensive humanitarian work, Carter wrote more than two dozen books after leaving the White House, including “Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President” (1982), “An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of My Rural Boyhood” (2001), “The Personal Beliefs of Jimmy Carter” (2002), and “Faith: A Journey for All,” (2018). He also wrote poetry collections, as well as a fictional work about the Revolutionary War, titled “The Hornet’s Nest” (2003).

Carter referenced his Christian faith in the opening lines of his presidential inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1977, quoting the biblical Old Testament call “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019, in Plains, Ga.

John Amis/AP

Carter’s faith and seemingly limitless energy manifested themselves as he taught at his church’s Sunday school in his Plains, Georgia hometown, where congregants lined up to attend. He was also known for walking the length of every plane on which he traveled – he always flew commercial – to shake hands with every passenger.

Yet behind Carter’s easygoing Southern manner was an iron will and inexhaustible determination. Biographer Douglas Brinkley recalled the 39th president as “a kind of military man” who never seemed to get tired.

“I mean,” Brinkley noted, “the Secret Service nickname for him was ‘Dasher’ because he could move around so much.”

Jimmy Carter’s commitment to the principles that defined his life was, again, expressed in his presidential inaugural address: “Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved,” Carter declared. “The powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.”

ABC News’ Patricio Chile and Christopher Watson contributed to this report. source

Trump, Biden react to death of former President Jimmy Carter

Former President Jimmy Carter died at his home in Georgia on Sunday at the age of 100

President-elect Trump and President Biden reacted to the death of former President Jimmy Carter on Sunday, with Trump saying, “we all owe him a debt of gratitude,” and Biden honoring his “dear friend.”

Carter, who was the 39th president of the United States and a peanut farmer whose vision of a “competent and compassionate” government propelled him into the White House, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday at the age of 100.

“I just heard of the news about the passing of President Jimmy Carter. Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as President understand this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the Greatest Nation in History,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

“Melania and I are thinking warmly of the Carter Family and their loved ones during this difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their hearts and prayers,” the incoming president added.

Former President Jimmy Carter discusses his cancer diagnosis during a press conference at the Carter Center on August 20, 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia. Carter confirmed that he has melanoma that has spread to his liver and brain and will start treatment today. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

Trump later wrote that although he “strongly” disagreed with Carter philosophically and politically, he realized that the former president “truly loved and respected” the U.S. and all it stands for.

“He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect,” Trump said. “He was truly a good man and, of course, will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most Presidents, after he left the Oval Office.”

Also weighing in was President Biden, who said, “the world lost an extraordinary leader, statesman, and humanitarian.”

U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces new sanctions against Iran in retaliation for taking U.S. Hostages, Washington, D.C., USA, photograph by Marion S. Trikosko, April 7, 1980. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“Over six decades, we had the honor of calling Jimmy Carter a dear friend. But, what’s extraordinary about Jimmy Carter, though, is that millions of people throughout America and the world who never met him thought of him as a dear friend as well,” Biden wrote. “With his compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us. He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe.”

Biden referred to Carter as a man of great character and courage, hope and optimism.

He also said he and his wife will cherish seeing Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, together, noting that the love between the two is the “definition of partnership,” while their leadership is the definition of “patriotism.”

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks to the congregation at Maranatha Baptist Church before teaching Sunday school in his hometown of Plains, Georgia on April 28, 2019. Carter, 94, has taught Sunday school at the church on a regular basis since leaving the White House in 1981, drawing hundreds of visitors who arrive hours before the 10:00 am lesson in order to get a seat and have a photograph taken with the former President and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. (Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“We will miss them both dearly, but take solace knowing they are reunited once again and will remain forever in our hearts,” Biden said. “To the entire Carter family, we send our gratitude for sharing them with America and the world. To their staff – from the earliest days to the final ones – we have no doubt that you will continue to do the good works that carry on their legacy.

“And to all of the young people in this nation and for anyone in search of what it means to live a life of purpose and meaning – the good life – study Jimmy Carter, a man of principle, faith, and humility. He showed that we are great nation because we are a good people – decent and honorable, courageous and compassionate, humble and strong,” Biden added.

Vice President Kamala Harris called Carter’s life “a testament to the power of service,” whether it was as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, Governor of Georgia or President of the United States.

Trump posts Georgia jail mugshot, reacts to arrest

The Truth News — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 04:52:36 +0000

Trump posts Georgia jail mugshot to X (twitter), reacts to arrest

Former President Donald Trump was processed at the Fulton County Jail Thursday, August 24 on charges brought by District Attorney Fani Willis that he tried to overturn the 2020 result in Georgia.

Fast Facts

Trump processed and released from Fulton County Jail Thursday, August 24. He is surrendering to face charges brought by District Attorney Fani Willis that he tried to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
A hearing will take place at a later date.
Trump posted his mugshot to X (formerly Twitter), his first post since being banned from the platform in January 2020.
Judge Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court set bond for the former president, and current 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner, at $200,000
Trump and more than a dozen others were charged out of the Fulton County probe, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, John Eastman, among others
The charges include violating the Georgia RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act; Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer and more.

Trump campaign releases ‘Never Surrender’ merchandise with former president’s mugshot

Hours after former President Donald Trump’s booking photo at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, was released, the official store of his 2024 campaign added eight new items featuring the historic mugshot.

Ranging from $12 to $34, the items available include a bumper sticker, a coffee mug, koozies in black and white, and short-sleeve and long-sleeve shirts in black and white. All eight items include Trump’s mugshot, the “NEVER SURRENDER!” tagline and the Trump 2024 Make America Great Again logo.

The eight “Never Surrender” items available on the Trump merchandise website with the former president’s mugshot. Screenshot/Official Trump Store Website

In addition to the new merchandise, Trump added the photo to his campaign website with the following note before giving the option to donate to his campaign:

“Today, at the notoriously violent jail in Fulton County, Georgia, I was ARRESTED despite having committed NO CRIME.”

“The American people know what’s going on. What has taken place is a travesty of justice and ELECTION INTERFERENCE. The Left wants to intimidate YOU out of voting for a political outsider who puts the American people FIRST. But today, I walked into the lion’s den with one simple message on behalf of our entire movement: I WILL NEVER SURRENDER OUR MISSION TO SAVE AMERICA.”

Trump says getting his mugshot taken was ‘not a comfortable feeling’

POLITICS

Trump says taking a mugshot was ‘not a comfortable feeling, especially when you’ve done nothing wrong’

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump reacted to taking his first mugshot Thursday night, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that it was “not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

FOX DIGITAL EXCLUSIVE : Former President Trump said Georgia officials “insisted” he have a mugshot taken Thursday night during processing at the Fulton County Jail, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that doing so was “not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

The former president and current 2024 Republican front-runner turned himself in Thursday night at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta after being charged out of District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Thursday night, said officials in Georgia “insisted” on a mugshot. “They insisted on a mugshot and I agreed to do that,” he said. “This is the only time I’ve ever taken a mugshot.”

He added: “It is not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

“This is all about election interference,” Trump said. “It all comes through Washington and the DOJ and Crooked Joe Biden—nothing like this has ever happened in our country before.”

Trump tweets for the first time since getting banned from Twitter

Former President Donald Trump posted to X (formerly Twitter) for the first time since he was banned from the platform in January 2020.

Trump tweeted an image of his mug shot, with captions “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” and “NEVER SURRENDER!”

Twitter put a “lifetime ban” on Trump’s account after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. Elon Musk reinstated the former president’s account after he purchased the company in 2022, but Trump had not posted until Thursday.

Trump’s mug shot was taken at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia earlier Thursday when he was booked and released on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Twitter was Trump’s main communication platform throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, and he famously used the social media site during his presidency to snipe at rivals, discuss White House policy and praise supporters.

He told Fox News last year that despite his account being restored, he would continue to post on his own social media platform, Truth Social.

Donald Trump mugshot released, first ever for a former US president

Former President Donald Trump’s mugshot has been released after he was booked into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday.

Read more about Trump’s mugshot here.

The mugshot is the first ever taken by a former U.S. president and comes as Trump faces 13 charges relating to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The 13 counts against Trump include: violating the Georgia RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act; Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings; Conspiracy to Commit Filing False Documents; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Filing False Documents; and Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer.

Trump Force One departs Atlanta after Trump jail release

He turned himself in at the jail after he was charged with 13 counts stemming from the state probe into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The court had set Trump’s bail at $200,000. He was quickly processed and released.

Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month.

Trump speaks out after release from Georgia jail

“This should never happen. If you challenge an election, you should be able to challenge an election,” Trump said.

“I should have every right to do that. You have seen many people you have been watching over the years doing the same thing, whether it’s Hillary Clinton or Stacey Abrams or many others,” he said.

Trump added that the country would have “very dishonest elections” without the right to challenge them, before going on to tout the level of support he said he’s been receiving.

“This is their way of campaigning. This is one instance, there are three other instances. It’s election interference,” he added, appearing to reference the Biden administration.

Trump weight listed as 215 pounds in jail booking

According to the record, his height is listed as 6’3.

Trump’s weight was listed as 239 pounds in his 2018 physical examination by then-White House physician Ronny Jackson, who now serves in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Trump released from Georgia jail after booking

Former President Trump turned himself in Thursday night at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta, Georgia after he was charged with 13 counts stemming from the state probe into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The court had set Trump’s bail at $200,000. He was quickly processed and released.

Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month.

Trump arrives at Georgia jail

Former President Donald Trump has arrived at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia to surrender on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

He is expected to have a mugshot taken and will be booked, but will not attend a hearing until next month.

Trump supporters rally outside Atlanta jail ahead of his surrender

Supporters of former President Donald Trump are rallying outside the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia ahead of his surrender later this evening.

Fox News’ Bryan Llenas reported that around 100 supporters of the former president gathered with flags and other pro-Trump signs and apparel as sheriff’s deputies stood watch.

Trump Force One landed at the Atlanta airport just after 7:00 p.m. ET. The former president is currently en route to the jail.

Trump Force One arrives in Atlanta ahead of jailhouse surrender

Former President Donald Trump has arrived in Atlanta, Georgia ahead of his expected surrender at the Fulton County Jail on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump Force One landed at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport shortly after 7:00p.m. ET, and will travel directly to the jail from there.

He is expected to have a mugshot taken and will be booked, but will not attend a hearing until next month.

Democrats turn to social media to mock Rudy Giuliani mugshot: ‘Should we blast it everywhere?’

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., mocked former President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani after the latter’s mugshot was released in Fulton County, Georgia’s case over the 2020 election.

POLITICS

Democrats turn to social media to mock Rudy Giuliani mugshot: ‘Should we blast it everywhere?’

Rudy Giuliani’s Fulton County mughshot was met with glee by Democrats on social media. “Should we blast it everywhere?” one New York-based anti-Trump activist asked.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is one of 18 named co-conspirators in the ex-president’s fourth criminal indictment in under six months. Trump and the other defendants are accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.

Giuliani’s booking photo made waves on social media, including with Trump’s Democrat critics.

“Smile Rudy your[sp] on camera,” Omar quipped on her Instagram story.

Former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., also poked fun at Giuliani’s image, quipping on X, formerly known as Twitter, “I wonder who he’s angry at?”

Trump en route to Atlanta ahead of expected surrender to Fulton County authorities

Former President Donald Trump is en route to Atlanta, Georgia ahead of his expected surrender at the Fulton County Jail on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump’s plane departed New Jersey earlier in the evening, and is expected to arrive at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport shortly after 7:00p.m. ET.

He is expected to have a mugshot taken and will be booked, but will not attend a hearing until next month.

Who is Harrison Floyd? Former Black Voices for Trump director being held in Georgia jail

Harrison Floyd, the former Black Voice for Trump executive director, is being held in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia after turning himself in on Thursday in connection to District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Floyd was allegedly involved in efforts to pressure poll workers into promoting fraud allegations in favor of former President Donald Trump following the election, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

According to court records, Floyd is a former U.S. Marine who was active with the pro-Trump group. He was arrested in Maryland three months ago for allegedly assaulting FBI agents serving him a subpoena to appear before a grand jury for an unknown reason.

Fulton County jail records show Floyd is being held with no bond. He is the only person indicted in connection with Willis’ investigation that did not negotiate bond terms prior to his surrender.

McConnell plows through farm bill speech with no mention of Trump hours before expected arrest

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a policy-heavy speech in Louisville, Kentucky, on Thursday morning, hours before another top Republican, former President Donald Trump, is due to turn himself in at the Fulton County, Georgia, jailhouse.

POLITICS

McConnell plows through farm bill speech with no mention of Trump hours before expected arrest

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., gave a policy-heavy speech at a Kentucky Farm Bureau event hours before former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender at a Georgia jailhouse.

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s name and impending arrest did not come up in McConnell’s remarks.

Speaking at the Kentucky Farm Bureau Country Ham Breakfast, McConnell blamed high inflation rates on the federal government’s spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, discussed Congress’ effort to reauthorize the Farm Bill and championed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal struck under President Biden in 2021.

It’s a stark contrast to the media circus surrounding the former president’s impending appearance in Georgia. Reporters and protesters from both sides are already gathered after Trump declared on Truth Social that he would “proudly get arrested” Thursday.

Who are the 19 defendants in the Georgia Trump indictment?

Former President Donald Trump was indicted for the fourth time, and will surrender in Fulton County jail, Georgia.

Additionally, 18 others were indicted. Authorities say they were involved in illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. Charges were brought by District Attorney Fani Willis.

Trump is facing 13 counts in the latest indictment for alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Other defendants include the following:

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, lawyers John Eastman, Ray Smith III and Robert Cheeley, former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Trump campaign attorney Kenneth Chesebro, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, former members of Trump legal team Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell, ex-Trump staffer Michael Roman, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party David Shafer, Georgia state. Sen. Shawn Still, Illinois police chaplain Stephen Lee, Black Voices for Trump executive director Harrison Floyd, publicist Trevian Kutti, former Coffee County Republican Party in Georgia chairwoman Cathy Latham, 2020 Fulton County Republican poll watcher Scott Hall and former Coffee County, Georgia, election supervisor Misty Hampton.

Judge approves October trial date for one Trump co-defendant

A Georgia judge approved a rapid trial date for one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Fulton County case related to the 2020 election.

Judge Scott McAfee ordered a trial date for Oct. 23 for Kenneth Chesebro, who filed a motion for a speedy trial. That leaves just two months for arraignment, evidence discovery, motions and pretrial conferences.

The Oct. 23 trial date, however, only applies to Chesebro. “At this time, these deadlines do not apply to any co-defendant,” Judge McAfee’s order states.

Chesebro faces seven charges, including a violation of the Georgia’s RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act.

POLITICS

Fulton County DA asks court to set trial date for Trump and 18 co-defendants in October

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has requested an October 23, 2023, start date for the trial of former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in the Georgia 2020 election case.

Trump’s attorney earlier on Thursday told the court in a filing that the former president opposed the October trial date.

Steven Sadow, an Atlanta defense attorney hired to represent Trump in the Georgia case, wrote that his client “will be filing a timely motion to sever his case from that of co-defendant Chesebro, who has filed a demand for speedy trial, or any other co-defendant who files such a demand.”

Who has surrendered in Fulton County?

Former President Donald Trump will be the latest co-defendants to turn himself in at an Atlanta, Georgia jail and have his mugshot taken.

So far the co-defendants who have had their mugshots taken include:

Former chief of staff Mark Meadows, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Black Voices for trump executive director Harrison Floyd, lawyer John Eastman, Scott Hall, Cathy Latham, ex-Georgia GOP Chair David Shafer, attorney Kenneth Cheseboro, attorney Sidney Powell, attorney Ray Smith and lawyer Jenna Ellis.

Jonathan Turley: ‘Very likely’ we will see a Trump mugshot

Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley said it’s likely the former President Donald Trump will have his mugshot taken to turn himself in on Georgia charges on “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”

“It appears to most of us being clearly gratuitous why you would need a mugshot of the most recognizable face in the United States, if not one of the most in the world. But that is going to be part of this process as part of this process, as is the bond that he will have to pay,” Turley said.

After Trump surrenders for arrest, booking and release, the case will proceed through the Fulton County court system.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed charges against Trump and 18 other defendants on charges related to the 2020 election and Trump’s claims it was stolen.

The 41-count indictment details what prosecutors say was a conspiracy to reject the 2020 election. Turley has previously argued that the indictment is “excessive” and “dangerous,” but it also should be taken “seriously” by the Trump team given the nature of the charges.

What happens after an indictment?

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted for the fourth time this year, with 13 charges against him for alleged efforts to overturn election results in the state of Georgia during the 2020 presidential election.

There are 18 others who have been indicted alongside Trump. Now that the indictment has happened, the next step of the process will be an arraignment.

During an arraignment, the federal criminal defendants appear in court. While in court, the charges are read and the defendant is asked to enter a “guilty” or “not guilty” plea.

After an arraignment, there are several steps that come before a trial.

The prosecution and defense will come together and discuss the evidence and witnesses that will be involved in the case. Before a trial occurs, a plea bargain is discussed, where a defendant can plead guilty to a lesser charge. If there is no plea bargain reached, this is when a case will move to trial.

During a trial, a jury will be selected, witnesses and evidence will be displayed from both sides and eventually a verdict will be reached. If the defendant is found guilty, then sentencing will occur.

Fulton County Jail where Trump may be booked is under DOJ investigation

Fulton County Jail inmate LaShawn Thompson’s family says he died after allegedly being eaten alive by insects and bedbugs. (Harper Law Firm)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is actively investigating the jail where former President Donald Trump may be booked after his arrest in Fulton County.

DOJ opened an investigation into conditions inside the Fulton County Jail last month after an “extensive” review of publicly-available information. That review included a report about LaShawn Thompson, an inmate who died in September 2022 after he was allegedly eaten alive by bugs in his cell, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.

An autopsy said Thompson died of complications due to severe neglect and major contributing causes as untreated schizophrenia, dehydration, malnourishment and severe body insect infestation. His death was ruled a homicide.

“These autopsy findings confirm that Lashawn was killed by the extreme neglect of the Fulton County Jail and its staff,” Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing Thompson’s family in a lawsuit against the jail, said in a May 22 statement. “He was dehydrated, malnourished, and his body was infested inside and out with insects — it is truly one of the most horrific cases we have seen.”

The state of the jail could complicate negotiations between the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department and the Secret Service over how Trump will be booked.

According to the department’s website, individuals who have been arrested are first taken to the Main Jail at 901 Rice Street NW, Atlanta, for booking. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said earlier this month he expects Trump to be booked like any other criminal suspect, including fingerprinting and photographing.

Trump has an August 25 deadline to turn himself in to Fulton County authorities.

Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows mugshot released

A mugshot of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was released on Thursday after he turned himself in at a jail in Atlanta, Georgia, connected to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Meadows, a former congressman who served as chief of staff to former President Trump, was indicted along with Trump and more than a dozen others out of the Fulton County probe launched by the district attorney.

The charges include violating the Georgia RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act. The court set Trump’s bail at $200,000, and he is expected to be quickly processed and released. Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month.

Others charged out of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe, like former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and more had their photos taken during processing.

It marks the latest in a number of prosecutions against Trump, but this is the first that will require him also to pose for a mug shot — an image that is likely to be seen as iconic. Trump has denied wrongdoing in this case and others.

Trump ally Harrison Floyd remains in Georgia jail after not negotiating bond terms before surrender

Harrison Floyd, the former executive director of Black Voices for Trump, is currently sitting in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia after turning himself in on charges in connection to District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Floyd is the only defendant who did not negotiate bond terms before surrendering. All other 18 defendants, including former President Donald Trump, have now reached bond terms. 11 have surrendered — including Floyd — the other 10 have been released.

Floyd was allegedly involved in efforts to pressure poll workers into promoting fraud allegations, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Trump is expected to turn himself in later this evening.

Who is Mark Meadows?

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has been charged alongside former President Donald Trump and more than a dozen others in connection to Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Meadows turned himself into county authorities on Thursday after a federal judge denied his request a day earlier to prevent his “imminent arrest.” Meadows had sought to stall his arrest pending the outcome of an evidentiary hearing over the possibility of his racketeering charges be moved from state to federal court, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.

Prior to serving as Trump’s chief of staff from March 2020 to January 2021, Meadows served four full terms and part of a fifth as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina.

He headed the conservative House Freedom Caucus from 2017 to 2019.

Trump opposes an October trial date in Georgia case

Former President Donald Trump will soon ask to sever his case from one of the defendants facing charges in the Fulton County, Georgia criminal case.

Trump’s attorney in the Georgia case, Steven Sadow, told the court Thursday afternoon that the former president opposes the prosecutor’s request to hold the trial for all defendants in October.

In response to a motion for a speedy trial from Trump’s co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro, Fulton County DA Fani Willis requested that a trial “commence for all 19 defendants on October 23, 2023.”

POLITICS

Fulton County DA asks court to set trial date for Trump and 18 co-defendants in October

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has requested an October 23, 2023, start date for the trial of former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in the Georgia 2020 election case.

Sadow wrote that Trump “opposes the State’s ‘motion for entry of pretrial scheduling order’ and ‘motion to specially set trial'” and that he “will be filing a timely motion to sever his case from that of co-defendant Chesebro, who has filed a demand for speedy trial, or any other co-defendant who files such a demand.”

Trump retained Sadow, an Atlanta-based white collar defense attorney, to represent him in the Fulton County case. Sadow replaced Drew Findling, who had been representing him in the matter. Findling is no longer representing Trump, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

How many total charges does Trump have pending?

Former president Donald Trump has been indicted four times in 2023. He is the first former president in U.S. history to be indicted on criminal charges.

In March, Trump was charged from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into hush-money payments during the 2016 presidential campaign. During this particular investigation, Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts.

In June, Trump was indicted on charges at a federal level for the first time. Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump from a classified records investigation at his Mar-a-Lago home. Trump was accused of 37 felony charges, all of which Trump pleaded not guilty to.

In July, Trump was charged with three additional counts involving Smith’s investigation. Waltine Nauta, Trump’s aide and valet, and Carlos de Oliveria, his Mar-a Lago property manager, were also charged.

Smith was further investigating Trump’s alleged involvement in the Jan 6. Capitol riot and interference with the 2020 election results. In August, Trump was indicted on four federal charges related to Jan. 6, which he pleaded not guilty to.

Trump was indicted on 13 charges in Georgia, along with 18 others, with allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

Trump has a total of 91 pending charges against him.

Mark Meadows surrenders in Georgia on RICO charges

Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, was booked for charges in Atlanta Thursday, hours before former President Trump is expected to surrender at the same courthouse.

Meadows was charged with two counts in a 41-count indictment brought Trump and his allies by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat.

According to court records, Meadows bond was set at $100,000.

Meadows faces charges for soliciting an official to violate their oath of office related to the infamous 2020 phone call he arranged between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — in which Trump asked the elections chief to “find” purportedly missing ballots that would allow him to overcome his deficit against Biden in Georgia.

Georgia’s secretary of state also reportedly is set to subpoena to testify during a hearing to determine if former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ election interference case will be transferred to federal court next week.

Trump is expected to surrender to the Atlanta courthouse Thursday evening.

POLITICS

Mark Meadows seeks transfer of Fulton County case to federal court, claims immunity from prosecution

Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has asked his charges in the Georgia election interference case to be removed to federal court, claiming immunity from prosecution.

Where can I read the Trump-Georgia indictment?

The full Trump-Georgia indictment document can be viewed and downloaded on Fox News Digital.

The lengthy 98 page document includes all 41 counts former president Donald Trump was accused of, as well as the 18 others that have been accused alongside him. The document highlights who individual charges and counts. Those accused with Trump include former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.

The indictment states that the defendants and unindicted co conspirators “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings, impersonating a public officer, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft, and perjury.”

In the document, each count against Trump is broken down into sections with information and evidence laid out by the Fulton Superior Court.

How hard is it to get a pardon in Georgia?

Former president Donald Trump has been indicted for the fourth time. His most recent indictment involves alleged attempts to overturn 2020 presidential results in Georgia. If he is convicted, receiving a pardon will be a difficult task, even if he is elected president.

A president’s ability to pardon only applies to federal crime, and does not apply at a state level. Therefore, even if Trump is elected president, he will not have the power to pardon himself.

The power to pardon in Georgia does not fall to the governor, but rather a five-member board. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles is made up of five members who serve seven year terms. Felons who are seeking pardon by the board must serve their sentence for five years before doing so.

Who is DA Fani Willis, the prosecutor going after Donald Trump in Georgia?

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has brought an unprecedented racketeering case against Donald Trump and 18 others in Georgia.

But who is the local prosecutor trying to take down a former president?

Willis started her career as an assistant district attorney in Fulton County and has gained a reputation as a hard-working and talented litigator. She challenged her former boss in the 2020 Democratic primary for district attorney — and won.

She grew up in Washington and was raised by her father, a defense attorney who she said was a Black Panther, the Associated Press reported.

She studied at Howard University and holds a law degree from Emory University School of Law.

Trump’s campaign has attacked Willis over her father’s Black Panther ties.

In an email to supporters earlier this month, the campaign wrote that Willis comes from a “family steeped in hate” and is the “daughter of a former Black Panther,” before referencing quotes from a 2021 Time Magazine article.

“The daughter of a former Black Panther who recently retired as a criminal defense lawyer, the Inglewood, Calif.-born Willis would go along when her father went to court on Saturday mornings,” the quoted Time article reads.

“The judge who oversaw the Saturday courtroom, an older white man, was, according to Willis, known to be mean. But each week, he had Willis, too young to stay home alone or to hear the details her father needed to discuss with clients, sit next to him on the elevated dais, the two whispering back and forth,” the article continued. “One day, Willis’ father asked her what on earth they talked about.”

The email continued with a quote from the Fulton County Government website where Willis also referenced her father, John Clifford Floyd III, being a former Black Panther member.

Fulton County DA requests trial begin October 23

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis requested a trial to begin in the case against former President Trump and 18 others on Oct. 23.

In a filing Thursday, Willis “respectfully” requested that a trial “commence for all 19 defendants on October 23, 2023.”

Trump and more than a dozen others were charged out of the Fulton County probe, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, John Eastman, among others.

The charges include violating the Georgia RICO Act—the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations Act; Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings; Conspiracy to Commit Filing False Documents; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Filing False Documents; and Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer. Not everyone faces the same charges.

The former president, specifically, was charged with 13 counts: One count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, three counts of criminal solicitation, six counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of filing false documents and two counts of making false statements.

When will Donald Trump go on trial in Georgia?

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed a commencement trial date of March 4, 2024, in the Georgia election case of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants.

Willis has also proposed that arraignments for the defendants happen the week of Sept. 5. The dates are only a proposal for now and do not become official until signed by a judge.

The proposed trial date is one day before elections on Super Tuesday, when the largest number of delegates are up for grabs of any single day in the primary cycle. For presidential candidates, it’s a day that can make or break a campaign. Roughly 14 primaries are set to be held across the country, from California and Texas to Massachusetts and Maine.

Trump’s legal team is likely to seek to delay the the trial until after the 2024 presidential election.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the separate New York case involving dozens of state charges of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to a porn actor. He’s also scheduled to stand trial in May in the federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith alleging he illegally hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarted government efforts to return them.

What is Donald Trump accused of in Georgia?

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has accused former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants of “knowingly and willfully” forming a “conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.”

The 97-page indictment released earlier this month contains 41 felony counts against Trump and the 18 defendants and alleges they “unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere.”

The key allegation is that Trump and the other defendants “corruptly solicited Georgia officials, including the Secretary of State and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to violate their oaths to the Georgia Constitution and to the United States Constitution by unlawfully changing the outcome of the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia in favor of Donald Trump.”

Following the 2020 presidential election, Trump reportedly insisted during a phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that he had won the state of Georgia. Trump urged him to “find” enough votes to reverse the state’s results.

Trump also reportedly said: “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

Georgia certified election results showing that Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden won the state’s Nov. 3 election by 11,779 votes.

Trump’s phone call is the central piece of evidence in Willis’ case against Trump. The former president has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and called it a “perfect phone call.”

Who is Steven Sadow? Meet the attorney Trump hired hours before he’s booked in Fulton County

Former President Donald Trump abruptly replaced his attorney David Findling on Thursday hours before he is expected to turn himself in to Fulton County authorities in his Georgia 2020 election case.

Trump’s new attorney, Steven Sadow, is an Atlanta-based criminal defense lawyer who is described as a “special counsel for white collar and high profile defense” on his website.

Sadow’s previous high profile clients include rapper William Roberts, Jr., a/k/a Rick Ross, attorney Howard K. Stern, in a trial relating to the death of his partner Anna Nicole Smith, as well as “Mansion Madame” Lisa Ann Taylor and the singer Usher.

He studied at Marietta College and received his law degree from Emory University in 1979.

This wasn’t the first time Trump has decided to make changes to one of his legal defense teams. In June, Trump fired his attorneys Jim Trusty and John Rowley and replaced them with Todd Blanche in the federal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith concerning Trump’s retention of classified documents.

What time is Trump surrendering?

Former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender to Fulton County authorities in the evening Thursday.

The Federal Aviation Administration has placed temporary flight restrictions over the area where the Fulton County Jail is located in Georgia from 6:45 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET. The reason given for the restrictions is “VIP Movement.”

While no time has been confirmed for Trump’s arrival at the jail, the former president said Monday he will fly to Georgia and turn himself in to face 13 counts stemming from District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

It is expected that Trump will be required to take a mugshot. Others charged out of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe, like former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and more had their photos taken during processing.

Trump was charged with one count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, three counts of criminal solicitation, six counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of filing false documents and two counts of making false statements.

Trump retained Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based white collar defense attorney, to represent him in the Fulton County case. Sadow will replace Drew Findling, who had been representing him in the matter. Findling is no longer representing Trump, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

Trump retains new legal counsel in Fulton County case

Former President Trump retained Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based white collar defense attorney, to represent him in the Fulton County case.

Sadow will replace Drew Findling, who had been representing him in the matter. Findling is no longer representing Trump, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

“I have been retained to represent President Trump in the Fulton County, Georgia case,” Sadow said in a statement. “The President should never have been indicted. He is innocent of all the charges brought against him.”

Sadow added: “We look forward to the case being dismissed or, if necessary, an unbiased, open minded jury finding the President not guilty. Prosecutions intended to advance or serve the ambitions and careers of political opponents of the President have no place in our justice system.”

The indictment out of Georgia was the fourth for Trump, who is the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges.

Trump could not pardon himself as president if convicted in Georgia case

Former President Donald Trump could not exonerate himself from a possible conviction in Georgia under the Constitution if he wins wins the presidency in 2024, as presidents are not granted the authority to pardon themselves from crimes against individual states.

Trump was indicted for the fourth time Monday night, this time in Georgia along with 18 others allegedly involved in illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. The former president is facing 13 counts in the latest indictment.

According to Georgia state law, Trump would have to wait at least five years after being released from court-ordered supervision before he can apply for a pardon.

In the event of a conviction in Georgia, Trump could be issued a pardon from the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. But this can only be done after fulfilling his sentence, any probation or parole time and five years time.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp does not have the authority to pardon Trump if he were convicted in the Peach State.

House Judiciary Republicans accuse Fulton County DA of ‘politically motivated’ Trump indictment

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee have accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of filing “politically motivated” charges against former President Donald Trump.

In a letter sent to Willis Thursday, Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, raised concerns about the timing of Willis’ actions and demanded that her office turn over any documents and communications with the Biden administration.

“Your indictment and prosecution implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether they are politically motivated,” Jordan wrote.

“[I]t is noteworthy that just four days before this indictment, you launched a new campaign fundraising website that highlighted your investigation into President Trump,” the letter continued. “Additionally, the forewoman of the special grand jury you convened to investigate President Trump earlier this year bragged during an unusual media tour about her excitement at the prospect of subpoenaing President Trump.”

“The timing of this prosecution reinforces concerns about your motivation,” the letter states. “In February 2021, news outlets reported that you directed your office to open an investigation into President Trump … Yet, you did not bring charges until two-and-a-half years later, at a time when the campaign for the Republican nomination is in full swing.”

What is an indictment?

An indictment is a formal accusation or charge of a serious crime by a government that forms the basis of a legal case against an entity.

Former President Trump and 18 other individuals were indicted by a Georgia grand jury earlier this month.

A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia handed up the indictment against the former president and several other individuals, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.Monday’s indictment means that Trump and the others named in the document are formally accused of violating several statutes, including violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

In addition to accusation of violating the Georgia RICO Act, the other charges include Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; and Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings, among others.

How has Trump responded to his Georgia indictment?

Former President Trump told Fox News Digital his fourth indictment comes during a “dark period for our country” but vowed to win the 2024 presidential election and “Make America Great Again.”

Trump was indicted for the fourth time on Aug. 15 out of the Georgia probe into alleged efforts to overturn 2020 election.

“Nineteen people were indicted, and the whole world is laughing at the United States as they see how corrupt and horrible a place it has turned out to be under the leadership of Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump told Fox News Digital during an exclusive interview after the indictment came down.

Trump and more than a dozen others were charged, including his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his former attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, John Eastman, among others.

“The racist and corrupt district attorney of Fulton County, which has turned out to be a murder capital of the world with among the highest violent crime levels anywhere in our country, just opened a fundraising site in order to benefit off the things she most campaigned on, ‘I will get Donald Trump,’” he said, slamming Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

What are the criminal charges against former President Donald Trump?

Former President Donald Trump is the first U.S. president in history to be indicted on criminal charges.

In a span of just four-and-a-half-months, Trump has been charged in four criminal cases at the federal and state level concerning allegations of his conduct both before entering and after leaving the White House.

In New York, Trump faces 34 felony counts brought by District Attorney Alvin Bragg in connection to alleged hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

In Florida, he is charged with 40 counts related to his handling of classified documents after leaving office and his delay in returning them.

In Washington, D.C., special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with four counts for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

And in Georgia, Trump faces 13 felony counts in a racketeering case brought by District Attorney Fani Willis for his alleged election meddling in the state.

Trump to be booked at Fulton County jail after charges stemming from 2020 election probe

Former President Trump will turn himself in Thursday night at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta, Georgia after he was charged with 13 counts stemming from the state probe into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The court set Trump’s bail at $200,000, and he is expected to be quickly processed and released. Fox News Digital has learned his formal arraignment, where he is expected to plead not guilty, will take place sometime early next month.

“NOBODY HAS EVER FOUGHT FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY LIKE PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “FOR DOING SO, I WILL PROUDLY BE ARRESTED…IN GEORGIA GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

Georgia secretary of state expects subpoena as Mark Meadows seeks to move Trump election case to fed

Georgia’s secretary of state reportedly is to be subpoenaed to testify during a hearing to determine if former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ election interference case will be transferred to federal court next week.

Meadows, meanwhile, had an emergency motion seeking to prevent his “imminent arrest” in Fulton County denied Wednesday, a day before former President Donald Trump was set to turn himself in. Meadows had sought to stall his arrest pending the outcome of an evidentiary hearing over the possibility of his RICO charges be moved from state to federal court, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.

A judge, however, ruled the state should continue for now unless the feds notify the court that they’re taking over jurisdiction. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis set a deadline for noon Thursday for Meadows, Trump and allies to turn themselves in.

“While Meadows’s imminent arrest may present an actual injury, there are strong countervailing reasons to not enjoin the state criminal proceedings,” the judge’s decision Wednesday said. “Thus, the Court determines that, the clear statutory language for removing a criminal prosecution, does not support an injunction or temporary stay prohibiting District Attorney Willis’s enforcement or execution of the arrest warrant against Meadows.”

Giuliani mugshot released after he turns himself in on Trump-Georgia 2020 case

A mugshot of Rudy Giuliani was released Wednesday after the former New York City mayor turned himself in at an Atlanta jail on charges connected to alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Giuliani, 79, was indicted last week along with former President Donald Trump and 17 others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said they participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after the Republican president lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020.

Giuliani is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers in Georgia and other closely contested states to illegally appoint electoral college electors favorable to Trump.

Bond for Giuliani, who was released after booking like the other defendants, was set at $150,000, second only to Trump’s $200,000.

Other high-profile defendants also surrendered Wednesday, including Jenna Ellis, an attorney who prosecutors say was involved in efforts to convince state lawmakers to unlawfully appoint presidential electors, and lawyer Sidney Powell, who is accused of making false statements about the election in Georgia and helping to organize a breach of voting equipment in rural Coffee County.

Who has surrendered to the Fulton County Jail?

At least 19 of the people facing charges in Fulton County, Georgia, have turned themselves into authorities to be booked.

Each of those who surrendered have been released on bond. None of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants have yet entered pleas or been arraigned since the booking process is separate in Georgia.

Here is a list of those who have surrendered, the number of charges they face and their bond amount:

Scott Hall, an Atlanta-based bail bondsman, faces seven counts. He agreed to a $10,000 bond.

John Eastman, a former attorney for Trump, faces nine counts. His bond was set at $100,000.

Cathy Latham, a former school teacher, is charged with 11 counts and has a $75,000 bond.

David Shafer, the former Georgia GOP chairman, is charged with eight counts. He has a $75,000 bond.

Kenneth Chesebro, a former Trump campaign attorney, faces seven counts and his bond was set for $100,000.

Ray Smith III, a lawyer who represented Trump in his 2020 election challenges in Georgia, is charged with 12 counts. He agreed to a $50,000.

Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who pushed false election claims, faces seven charges. Her bond was set at $100,000.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney, is charged with 13 counts and has a $150,000 bond.

Jenna Ellis, a former senior legal adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign, is charged with two counts and has agreed to a $100,000 bond.

First two Trump co-defendants were booked in Fulton County Jail on Tuesday

The first two of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia election meddling case turned themselves in to authorities Tuesday morning.

Scott Hall, an Atlanta-based bail bondsman, and John Eastman, a former Trump attorney, were each booked at the Fulton County Jail, records show. Hall has been assigned a $10,000 bond for seven charges. Eastman accepted a $100,000 bond.

The two men were indicted last week alongside Trump and 16 others, who are accused by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of scheming to subvert the will of Georgia voters in a desperate bid to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. It was the fourth criminal case brought against the Republican former president.

Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, faces charges related to his advice to Trump on how the former president could overturn the 2020 election.

Hall is accused of conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot counting machines at the Coffee County Election office on Jan. 7, 2021. His seven charges include one count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud Georgia, and three felony counts related to his alleged actions in Coffee County.

Eastman said in a statement provided by his lawyers that he was surrendering Tuesday “to an indictment that should never have been brought.” He lambasted the indictment for targeting “attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients” and said each of the 19 defendants was entitled to rely on the advice of lawyers and past legal precedent to challenge the election results.

Federal judge delivers blow to Trump co-defendants in Georgia election case

A federal district court judge turned down requests from two co-defendants in the Georgia racketeering case involving former President Trump to transfer jurisdiction of their cases to federal court.

Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia issued two simultaneous orders Wednesday, denying the requests from former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Department of Justice civil division chief Jeff Clark. Meadows and Clark requested in their motions that their cases are transferred and for the court to allow them to avoid arrest in the case.

“Nothing Mr. Meadows is alleged in the indictment to have done is criminal per se: arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the President’s behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the President,” counsel for Meadows wrote in a court motion filed Aug. 15. “One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things.”

“Mr. Clark asks the Court either to grant a stay (or a temporary restraining order) against Fulton County … or to grant an administrative stay as we describe below,” counsel for Clark added in a motion on Aug. 21. “If the Court grants a stay … Mr. Clark would not need to be put the choice of making rushed travel arrangements to fly into Atlanta or instead risking being labeled a fugitive.”

Both Meadows and Clark argued in their motions that, because they were federal officials at the time of the alleged crimes, their cases should be handled by the federal court system.

However, Jones denied the requests, stating in the Meadows order that “the clear statutory language for removing a criminal prosecution, does not support an injunction or temporary stay prohibiting [Georgia’s] enforcement or execution of the arrest warrant against Meadows.”

Former President Donald Trump to surrender to Fulton County authorities after Georgia indictment

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday will turn himself in to authorities in Georgia to face charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

Trump was charged by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with one count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, three counts of criminal solicitation, six counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of filing false documents and two counts of making false statements.

Judge Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court set bond for the former president, and current 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner, at $200,000.

Trump’s indictment out of Fulton County is his fourth.

He is the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges.

source

Trump says taking a mugshot was ‘not a comfortable feeling, especially when you’ve done nothing wrong’

Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that officials ‘insisted’ he take a mugshot

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said Georgia officials “insisted” he have a mugshot taken Thursday night during processing at the Fulton County Jail, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that doing so was “not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

The former president and current 2024 Republican front-runner turned himself in Thursday night at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Ga. after being charged out of District Attorney Fani Willis’ investigation into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Thursday night, said officials in Georgia “insisted” on a mugshot.

“They insisted on a mugshot and I agreed to do that,” he said. “This is the only time I’ve ever taken a mugshot.”

He added: “It is not a comfortable feeling—especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Donald Trump mugshot (Fulton County Sheriff’s Office)

“This is all about election interference,” Trump said. “It all comes through Washington and the DOJ and Crooked Joe Biden—nothing like this has ever happened in our country before.”

Trump said the United States is “doing horribly, but now, it is doing worse because we have become a Third World country.”

The court had set Trump’s bail at $200,000. He was quickly processed and released Thursday evening.

The jail records stated that Trump stands at 6 feet, 3 inches and 215 pounds. The records state he has “Blond or Strawberry” hair and blue eyes.

“It is election interference,” he said. “We did nothing wrong at all. And we have every right every single right to challenge an election that we think is dishonest that we think is very dishonest.”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks in the Fulton County Government Center during a news conference, Monday, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. Donald Trump and several allies have been indicted in Georgia over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Willis, on Thursday, asked the Fulton County court to set a trial date for Trump and all 18 co-defendants in the case for October 23. The move was in response to a motion for a speedy trial from defendant Kenneth Chesebro.

The judge approved the October 23 trial date, but only for Chesebro, as he was the only defendant to request a speedy trial.

Meanwhile, Trump retained Steven Sadow, an Atlanta-based white collar defense attorney, to represent him in the Fulton County case. Sadow will replace Drew Findling, who had been representing him in the matter. Findling is no longer representing Trump, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

The indictment out of Georgia was the fourth for Trump, who is the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges.

Trump was first charged in March out of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s years-long investigation related to hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Bragg alleged that Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was the first prosecutor to bring charges against Trump. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Those charges from Bragg came amid Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony charges out of that probe. The charges include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Last month, on July 27, Trump was charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of Smith’s investigation — an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.

Smith was also investigating whether Trump was involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.

On Aug. 1, Trump was indicted on four federal charges out of Smith’s Jan. 6 probe.