Donald Trump shared his mugshot on social media on Thursday (August 24), just hours after turning himself in to Fulton County jail on several RICO charges stemming from the 2020 presidential election.
The former president and his 18 co-defendants, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, took mugshots while in custody. Trump returned to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to post his mugshot and ask for donations. The post was his first since being banned following the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
“ELECTION INTERFERENCE! NEVER SURRENDER!” Trump wrote in the post. He soon deleted it, but the image remains on his social media platform of choice, Truth Social and on his website.
Donald Trump embedded the mugshot alongside a statement on his site asking for contributions for his presidential run. He referred to his arrest at “the notoriously violent jail” in Fulton County, Georgia, calling it “ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”
He continued, ”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.”
The former commander-in-chief then asked for donations to “to evict Crooked Joe Biden” and “SAVE AMERICA.”
In a statement to Fox News following his arrest, a defiant Donald Trump insisted “I should have every right” to challenge what he calls a “rigged” and “stolen” election. He called his arrest “a travesty of justice” and maintained his innocence, adding, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Donald Trump hired a new lawyer before surrendering to authorities, Steve Sadow, who previously represented Gunna in the YSL RICO case.
