“NEVER GIVE UP!”
Trump uses mugshot to return to X
8/25/2023 7:22 am
In the election campaign, ex-US President Trump is dependent on clout on social media. His own network “Truth Social” has only a few users. Time to rekindle an old connection: with his followers at X, the platform on which his earlier successes are based.
Former US President Donald Trump has returned to X, formerly Twitter, with a post. Trump, who once had more than 88 million followers on the platform prior to his ban, posted his recent mug shot at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia along with the words, “Election interference. Never give up!” – written in capital letters as usual. He also linked a website where his supporters can donate to his campaign. The post received several hundred thousand reactions within a short period of time.
Trump was banned from major online platforms towards the end of his term after his supporters stormed the US House of Representatives in Washington on January 6, 2021. Before the unprecedented outbreak of violence, he had goaded his supporters with the unfounded claim that he had been cheated out of the 2020 presidential election. In his online messages before and after the Capitol attack, he openly showed sympathy for the rioters. The platform operators therefore feared that there could be new violence if Trump was not banned – and blocked his accounts.
However, on November 19, 2022, the San Francisco-based company revised its position under the leadership of new owner Elon Musk, who bought Twitter on October 2. Nevertheless, Trump had not posted anything so far, his last word to date on X is still dated January 8, 2021, a few days after the Capitol storm. After his Twitter profile was blocked, Trump founded his own social media platform called “Truth Social”, on which he has around 6.4 million followers. X still has 86.6 million users following Trump. Trump wants to run as a Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election and has to win the party’s internal primaries to do so. More online reach would be convenient for him.
Trump’s mug shot marks a historic first: it’s the first time in US history that a former president has been immortalized in such a photograph. The sheriff’s office released the photo shortly after. Following his election interference charges in the state of Georgia, Trump was briefly arrested at the Fulton City County Jail in Atlanta on “charges of extortion and conspiracy”.
1.90 meters, 97 kilograms
During the recording of the personal data in prison, Trump was assigned the prisoner number “PO1135809”. Authorities said he was 1.90 meters tall, weighed 97 kilograms and had blonde hair. In the mugshot, Trump is wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie, and scowls at the camera. After the identification service and a total of less than 30 minutes in prison, Trump left again. A deposit of $ 200,000 (around 185,000 euros) had already been set at the beginning of the week.
The Republican had previously described the authorities in Georgia to journalists as “sham justice” and accused them of “election interference”. “I did nothing wrong,” he said after the prison date.
Trump was indicted in Atlanta last Monday for his attempts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The charge against the 77-year-old includes 13 points and is based, among other things, on a law against organized crime. Trump is said to have conspired with 18 other defendants to have himself declared the winner of the Georgia election despite his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden. Among the co-defendants are Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Trump has already been charged four times this year, including twice for his activities after the 2020 election. The authorities had refrained from taking police photos in the three previous charges against Trump. But he still enjoys great popularity among the right-wing base. The right-wing populist leads polls for the 2024 Republican presidential primary by more than 40 points over his pursuers. He therefore stayed away from the first television debate of the Republican presidential candidates on Wednesday evening.