Donald Trump says he will be arrested on Thursday amid Georgia election probe

ITV News Correspondent Robert Moore reports live on the latest as Trump faces another run-in with authorities over allegations he schemed to overturn the 2020 election

Former US President Donald Trump will surrender to authorities in Georgia on Thursday as he stands accused of illegally scheming to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state.

“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be arrested,” Trump wrote on his social media network on Monday night, hours after his bond was set at $200,000 (£156,000).

It will be Trump’s fourth arrest since April, when he became the first former president in US history to face indictment. Since then, Trump, who remains the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has faced a number of legal woes in jurisdictions across the country.

Trump's appearance in Georgia will come a day after the first Republican primary debate, which he has decided to skip.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis set a deadline of noon on Friday for Trump and his 18 co-defendants to turn themselves in to be booked. During the booking process, defendants are typically photographed, fingerprinted, and asked to provide certain information.

She has said she wants to try the defendants collectively and bring the case to trial in March of next year, which would put it in the heat of the presidential nominating season.

A full list of the 13 counts Trump faces in the Georgia indictment

• Violation of the Georgia Rico (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) Act

• Three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by public officer

• Two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree

• Two counts of false statements and writings

• Two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings

• Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer

• Conspiracy to commit filing false documents

• Filing false documents

He is expected to turn himself in at the Fulton County jail, which has long been plagued with problems.

The Department of Justice last month opened a civil rights investigation into conditions, citing filthy cells, violence and the death last year of a man whose body was found covered in insects in the main jail’s psychiatric wing. Three people have died in Fulton County custody in the past month.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release on Monday afternoon that when Trump surrenders there will be a “hard lockdown” of the area surrounding the jail.

But Trump is not expected to spend much time there. Since Trump’s bond has already been set, he will be released from custody once he is booked.

Booking a former president, who still has 24-hour Secret Service protection, has created myriad security and logistical issues in other jurisdictions.

In his past appearances in a New York state court and federal courts in Miami and Washington, Trump was not handcuffed while in custody. He was also not required to pose for a mugshot, with officials instead using existing photographs of the former president.

Georgia officials have said Trump will be treated like others charged with crimes in their state.

“Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices, and so it doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you,” Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat said at a news conference earlier this month.

The former president is barred from intimidating co-defendants, witnesses or victims in the case, including on social media, according to the bond agreement signed by Willis, Trump’s defence attorneys and the judge. It explicitly includes “posts on social media or reposts of posts” made by others.

Trump has repeatedly used social media to attack people involved in the criminal cases against him as he campaigns to reclaim the White House in 2024.

In a post on Monday, Trump called the Fulton County district attorney “crooked, incompetent, & highly partisan.”

The agreement also prohibits the former president from making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature” against witnesses or co-defendants, and from communicating in any way about the facts of the case with them, except through attorneys.

Trump was charged last week in the case alongside a number of allies, who prosecutors say conspired to subvert the will of voters in a desperate bid to keep the Republican in the White House after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and he characterises the case - and the three others he is facing - as efforts to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign.

Other defendants include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and a Trump administration Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark.

The Georgia indictment came just two weeks after the Justice Department special counsel charged Trump in a separate case in a vast conspiracy to overturn the election.

Aside from the two election-related cases, Trump faces a federal indictment accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents as well as a New York state case charging him with falsifying business records.

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