Trump granted $200,000 bail in Georgia and ordered not to make ‘direct or indirect’ threats on social media
Former president Donald Trump will remain free on $200,000 bail after he is officially arrested and booked in Fulton County, Georgia later this week, according to court documents.
According to a consent order signed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, Mr Trump’s attorney and the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, Mr Trump’s bond was set at $80,000 for the single charge he faces for violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, plus an additional $10,000 for each of the 12 counts he faces for criminal conspiracy, criminal solicitation, filing false documents and false statements charges.
The $80,000 bond that was set for Mr Trump on his RICO charge is four time as high as that asked of his alleged co-conspirator and co-defendant, disgraced ex-law professor John Eastman.
A similar consent order set Mr Eastman’s bond at $100,000 — $20,000 on the RICO charge, and $10,000 for eight additional charges.
Both Mr Trump and Mr Eastman are required to post ten per cent of their respective bond amounts and will be mandated to make monthly reports to Fulton County’s pre-trial supervision officials.
As conditions of release, both were ordered not to “violate the laws of this State, the laws of any other state, the laws of the United States of America, or any other local laws” as a condition of their release, and warned against performing any “act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a codefendant or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice”.
They were further forbade from communicating “in any way, directly or indirectly, about the facts of this case ... except through his or her counsel” with any co-defendant or anyone known to be a witness in the case against them.
But Mr Trump’s consent order includes several more provisions which appear tailored to the ex-president’s history of attacking any perceived opponent — legal or political — on his social media platform and in public statements.
Under his release conditions, Mr Trump was ordered to “make no direct or indirect threat of any nature” against his co-defendants, any witnesses in the case — including the 30 un-indicted co-conspirators described in the indictment against him — or any victims.
The twice-impeached, quadruply-indicted former president was also barred from making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community,” and warned that those restrictions against him include “posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media”.
His co-defendants include his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows; ex-New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani; attorneys Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powel; ex-law professor John Eastman; Trump campaign lawyer Ken Cheseboro; and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.
Each is charged with violating Georgia’s RICO statute, which is modelled after a federal law enacted to fight Italian-American organised crime in the 1970s.
Additionally, Mr Trump faces 12 other charges, including: Conspiracy to impersonate a public officer, two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery, two counts of conspiracy to make false statements under oath, two counts of conspiracy to file false documents, two counts of solicitation of a public officer, filing false documents, conspiracy to solicit false statements, and making false statements.
Each of the co-defendants — including Mr Trump — required to be arrested and booked by the Fulton County Sheriff’s office before noon on Friday, 25 August. The former president is reportedly planning to surrender on Thursday at the earliest.
