Giuliani turns himself in on the 2020 Georgia election charges after bail was set at $150,000

ATLANTA (AP) — Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer and confidant, turned himself in at an Atlanta jail Wednesday on charges he tried to overturn then-President Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

The former New York mayor was indicted last week along with Trump and 17 others. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said they took part in a wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of voters after the Republican president lost to Democrat Joe Biden in November 2020.

Bail for Giuliani, who like the other defendants was released after booking, was set at $150,000, just behind Trump’s $200,000.

Giuliani, 79, is accused of leading Trump’s efforts to force state lawmakers in Georgia and other closely contested states to ignore the will of voters and illegally appoint pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College.

Other high-profile defendants also surrendered Wednesday, including Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who prosecutors say was involved in persuading state lawmakers to improperly appoint presidential electors, and attorney Sidney Powell, who is accused of making election false statements in Georgia and helped organize a break-in of voting equipment in rural Coffee County.

Georgia was one of several key states that Trump narrowly lost, prompting the Republican and his allies to say without evidence that the election had been rigged in favor of his Democratic rival Biden.

Giuliani is accused of making false statements and soliciting false statements, conspiring to create false records and asking state lawmakers to break their oath of office to appoint a replacement slate of pro-Trump voters.

Outside the Fulton County Jail on Wednesday afternoon, Giuliani laughed when asked if he regretted aligning himself with Trump.

“It is a great honor for me to be involved in this case because this case is a fight for our way of life,” Giuliani told reporters. “This prosecution is a travesty. It’s an attack on — not just me, not just President Trump, not just the people in this prosecution, some of whom I don’t even know — this is an attack on the American people.”

After Giuliani’s surrender, Trump repeated his baseless claims that the election was rigged and stolen, writing on his social media page: “The greatest mayor in the history of New York City was just ARRESTED in Atlanta, Georgia for “The integrity of the elections was fought.”

Trump, the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, has announced he plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. He and his allies described the investigation as politically motivated and sharply criticized the Democrat District Attorney Willis.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark are both seeking to have the case against them heard in federal court rather than Fulton County Superior Court. Both argue that the actions giving rise to the charges in the indictment were related to their work as federal agents and that the case should be moved to federal court and the charges against them dismissed.

They had each asked a judge to allow them to avoid arrest while those requests were pending. But U.S. District Judge Steve Jones on Wednesday rejected their requests to avoid prison time as they fight to move the case to federal court.

Willis gave people charged last week in the election subversion case until midday Friday to turn themselves in. Her team negotiated bail amounts and conditions with attorneys for the defendants before they turned themselves in to prison.

Misty Hampton, who was the election supervisor in Coffee County when the voting equipment breach occurred there, had her bond set at $10,000. David Shafer, a former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of 16 fake voters for Trump, and Cathy Latham, who is charged in the Coffee County violation and was also a fake voter, turned themselves in Wednesday morning. Also surrendering on Wednesday were attorneys Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro, who prosecutors say helped organize the fake voter rally at the state Capitol in December 2020.

Attorney John Eastman, who pushed a plan to keep Trump in power, and Scott Hall, a bail bondsman accused of being involved in the election equipment breach in Coffee County, turned themselves in Tuesday.

The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office has said it will release booking photos around 4 p.m. every day, but Shafer appeared to post his photos on the social media platform X shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday known as Twitter, to post with the message: “Good morning! #NewProfilePicture.”

Lawyers for Chesebro filed a motion for a speedy trial on Wednesday. Normally such a request would mean the trial would have to begin this fall, but in this case there are many defendants and several aggravating factors, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor at Georgia State University School of Law.

As Republicans in Georgia and elsewhere call for Willis to be punished for impeaching Trump, a group of Black pastors and community activists gathered outside the Atlanta state Capitol on Wednesday to pray for the Democratic prosecutor and voice their support.

Bishop Reginald Jackson, head of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Georgia, said Willis was being attacked “because of her courage and determination.”

Kate Brumback reports for The Associated Press.

Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Michael R. Sisak in New York contributed reporting.

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