Giuliani turns himself in on Georgia 2020 election charges after bond is set at $150,000

Rudy Giuliani exits US District Court after attending a hearing in a defamation suit related to the 2020 US presidential election results, Washington, US, May 19, 2023. (Reuters)
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Updated 23 August 2023
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Giuliani turns himself in on Georgia 2020 election charges after bond is set at $150,000

  • Former New York City mayor, celebrated as ‘America’s mayor’ for his leadership after 9/11, is charged with Trump and 17 other people
  • Giuliani, 79, is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers in Georgia and other closely contested states to ignore the will of voters

ATLANTA: Rudy Giuliani surrendered to authorities in Georgia on Wednesday on charges alleging he acted as former President Donald Trump’s chief co-conspirator in a plot to subvert the 2020 election.
The former New York City mayor, celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after 9/11, is charged with Trump and 17 other people under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. His bond has been set at $150,000, second only to Trump’s $200,000
Jail records showed he was booked Wednesday afternoon.
Giuliani, 79, is accused of spearheading Trump’s efforts to compel state lawmakers in Georgia and other closely contested states to ignore the will of voters and illegally appoint electoral college electors favorable to Trump.
Georgia was one of several key states Trump lost by slim margins, prompting the Republican and his allies to proclaim, without evidence, that the election was rigged in favor of his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Giuliani is charged with making false statements and soliciting false testimony, conspiring to create phony paperwork and asking state lawmakers to violate their oath of office to appoint an alternate slate of pro-Trump electors.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said that, if convicted, Giuliani will be sentenced to prison.
Giuliani has denied wrongdoing, arguing he had a right to raise questions about what he believed to be election fraud. He has called the indictment “an affront to American democracy” and an “out and out assault on the First Amendment.”
“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,” Giuliani told reporters as he left his apartment in New York on Wednesday, adding that he is “fighting for justice” and has been since he first started representing Trump.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
ATLANTA: Rudy Giuliani is expected to turn himself in at a jail in Atlanta on Wednesday on charges related to efforts to overturn then-President Donald 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 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 faces charges related to his work as a lawyer for Trump after the general election. At a meeting Wednesday with Willis’ team, Giuliani’s bond was set at $150,000, an attorney for Giuliani told The Associated Press. That’s higher than any of the defendants so far, except for Trump whose bond has been set at $200,000.
“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,” Giuliani told reporters as he left his apartment in New York on Wednesday, adding that he is “fighting for justice” and has been since he first started representing Trump.
Trump, the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, has said he plans to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. He and his allies have characterized the investigation as politically motivated and have heavily criticized Willis, a Democrat.
Giuliani criticized the indictment of lawyers who had worked for Trump and said the justice system was being politicized. He also highlighted the fact that some of the people indicted are not household names.
“Donald Trump told you this: They weren’t just coming for him or me,” Giuliani said. “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.”
Willis has set a deadline of noon on Friday for the people indicted last week in the election subversion case to turn themselves in. Her team has been negotiating bond amounts and conditions with the lawyers for the defendants before they surrender at the jail.
A $100,000 bond was set Wednesday for Trump-allied lawyer Sidney Powell, one of several people accused in a breach of voting equipment in rural Coffee County, in south Georgia. Misty Hampton, who was the Coffee County elections director when the breach happened, had her bond set at $10,000.
David Shafer, who’s a former Georgia Republican Party chair and served as one of 16 fake electors for Trump, and Cathy Latham, who’s accused in the Coffee County breach and was also a fake elector, turned themselves in early Wednesday morning. Also surrendering Wednesday were lawyers Ray Smith and Kenneth Chesebro, who prosecutors said helped organize the fake electors meeting 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 who was accused of participating in a breach of election equipment in Coffee County, turned themselves in Tuesday.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office has said it will release booking photos at 4 p.m. each day, but Shafer appeared to post his on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, just after 7 a.m. Wednesday with the message, “Good morning! #NewProfilePicture.”
While Republicans in Georgia and elsewhere are calling for Willis to be punished for indicting Trump, a group of Black pastors and community activists gathered outside the state capitol in Atlanta Wednesday to pray for and proclaim their support for the Democratic prosecutor.
Bishop Reginald Jackson, who leads Georgia’s African Methodist Episcopal churches, said that Willis is under attack “as a result of her courage and determination.”


At least 5 killed after Mexican Navy plane on medical mission crashes in Texas

Updated 3 sec ago
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At least 5 killed after Mexican Navy plane on medical mission crashes in Texas

  • The Monday afternoon crash killed at least five people and has set off a search in the waters off the Texas coast
  • Mexico’s Navy said in a statement to The Associated Press that four of the people aboard were Navy officers and four were civilians
DALLAS: A small Mexican Navy plane transporting a young medical patient and seven others crashed Monday near Galveston, killing at least five people and setting off a search in waters along the Texas coast, officials said.
Four of the people aboard were Navy officers and four were civilians, including a child, Mexico’s Navy said in a statement to The Associated Press. Two of the passengers were from a nonprofit that provides aid to Mexican children with severe burns, including transports to a Galveston hospital.
US Coast Guard Petty Officer Luke Baker said at least five aboard had died but did not identify which passengers.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Mexico’s Marines said in a statement that it is sending “its deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in this tragic accident.”
The crash took place Monday afternoon in Galveston Bay near the base of the causeway that connects Galveston Island to the mainland. Emergency responders and search teams rushed to the scene near the popular beach destination along the Texas coast that is about 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) southeast of Houston.
Sky Decker, a professional yacht captain who lives about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the crash site, said he jumped in his boat to see if he could help. He said he picked up two police officers who directed him through thick fog to a nearly completely submerged plane. Decker jumped in the water and found a badly injured woman trapped beneath chairs and other debris.
“I couldn’t believe. She had maybe 3 inches of air gap to breathe in,” he said. “And there was jet fuel in there mixed with the water, fumes real bad. She was really fighting for her life.”
He said he also pulled out a man sitting in front of her who had already died. He described both of them as dressed in civilian clothes.
Mexico’s Navy said the plane was helping with a medical mission in coordination with the Michou and Mau Foundation, which provides emergency transports to children with life-threatening burns to Shriners Children’s hospital in Galveston, according to the nonprofit’s website.
The foundation said in a post on social media, “We express our deepest solidarity with the families in light of these events. We share their grief with respect and compassion, honoring their memory and reaffirming our commitment to providing humane, sensitive, and dignified care to children with burns.”
The statement from Mexico’s Navy said the plane had an “accident” during its approach to Galveston but did not elaborate.
Teams from the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board have arrived at the scene of the crash, the Texas Department of Public Safety said on the social platform X.
A spokesperson from NTSB said they are “aware of this accident and are gathering information about it.” The Galveston County Sheriff’s Office said officials from its dive team, crime scene unit, drone unit and patrol were responding to the crash.
It’s not immediately clear if weather was a factor. The area has been experiencing foggy conditions over the past few days, according to Cameron Batiste, a National Weather Service meteorologist. He said that at about 2:30 p.m. Monday a fog came in that had about a half-mile visibility.