ATLANTA – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani surrendered himself at an Atlanta jail on Wednesday, facing charges related to his alleged involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
Last week, Giuliani, along with former President Donald Trump and 17 others, was indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The charges allege their participation in a broad conspiracy to undermine the will of the voters after Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020.
Giuliani’s bond was set at $150,000, while Trump’s bond was set at $200,000. Sidney Powell, a Trump-allied lawyer accused of being involved in a breach of voting equipment in rural Coffee County, Georgia, had her bond set at $100,000. Misty Hampton, the former Coffee County elections director during the breach, had her bond set at $10,000.
Giuliani, 79, is specifically accused of leading Trump’s efforts to persuade Georgia and other closely contested states to disregard the voters’ will and unlawfully appoint electoral college electors favorable to Trump.
Georgia was one of several crucial states that Trump narrowly lost, leading him and his allies to baselessly claim that the election had been rigged in favor of Joe Biden.
The charges against Giuliani include making false statements, soliciting false testimony, conspiring to fabricate documents, and encouraging state lawmakers to violate their oath of office by appointing an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors.
Before turning himself in at a New York jail, Giuliani asserted that he was “fighting for justice” and had been doing so since he first began representing Trump. He stated, “I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I am defending the rights of all Americans, as I did so many times as a United States attorney.”
Trump, the leading candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, plans to surrender at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. He and his allies have characterized the investigation as politically motivated and heavily criticized District Attorney Willis, a Democrat.
Willis’ team urged a judge to reject requests from two of the indicted individuals, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, to avoid being booked in jail while they seek to transfer their cases to federal court.
Giuliani criticized the indictment of lawyers who had worked for Trump and alleged that the justice system was being politicized. He also highlighted that some of the indicted individuals were not widely known figures, saying, “Donald Trump told you this: They weren’t just coming for him or me. Now they’ve indicted people in this case I don’t even know who they are. These are just regular people making a normal living.”
District Attorney Willis has set a deadline of noon on Friday for those indicted in the election subversion case to turn themselves in. Negotiations over bond amounts and conditions have been ongoing between her team and the defendants’ lawyers.
Several individuals, including David Shafer, a former Georgia Republican Party chair, and Cathy Latham, accused in the Coffee County breach, turned themselves in Wednesday morning. Lawyers Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro, who prosecutors said helped organize the fake electors meeting at the state Capitol in December 2020, also surrendered Wednesday.
Attorney John Eastman, who advocated for a plan to keep Trump in power, and Scott Hall, a bail bondsman accused of participating in the breach of election equipment in Coffee County, turned themselves in on Tuesday.
While some Republicans in Georgia and elsewhere have called for punishment against District Attorney Willis for indicting Trump, a group of Black pastors and community activists gathered outside the state Capitol in Atlanta to pray for and express their support for the Democratic prosecutor.
Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads Georgia’s African Methodist Episcopal churches, stated that Willis is under attack “as a result of her courage and determination.”
Meadows and Clark are attempting to transfer their cases from Fulton County Superior Court to federal court, arguing that the actions leading to the charges were related to their work as federal officials and that the state charges against them should be dismissed. They have also asked not to be booked at the Fulton County Jail while these motions are pending.
Willis’ team countered that Meadows has failed to demonstrate any hardship that would warrant the judge preventing his arrest. The team noted that other defendants, including Trump, had agreed to voluntarily surrender by the deadline.
In a separate filing, Willis’ team argued that Clark’s effort to halt Fulton County proceedings while his motion is pending amounts to an attempt “to avoid the inconvenience and unpleasantness of being arrested or subject to the mandatory state criminal process.”