ATLANTA – The first of Donald Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia’s criminal case accusing the former US president and his associates of subverting his 2020 election loss surrendered at an Atlanta jail on Tuesday, according to county records and a statement.
Trump’s former lawyer John Eastman and Republican poll watcher Scott Hall surrendered to the county sheriff’s office.
It is expected that the remaining 17 defendants named in the indictment will surrender by Friday, the office said.
Trump is set to turn himself in on Thursday to face his fourth criminal indictment this year.
The front-runner for the Republican 2024 White House nomination has lambasted all the prosecutions as politically motivated and continues to claim that his 2020 loss to Mr Joe Biden was the result of fraud.
Eastman said he would surrender a day after agreeing to a US$100,000 (S$136,000) bond agreement.
“I am here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought,” he added. “It represents a crossing of the Rubicon for our country, implicating the fundamental First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”
Hall, a Republican poll watcher in Georgia’s Fulton County, was booked by its sheriff’s office on Tuesday, the jail records showed.
He previously agreed to a US$10,000 bond deal requiring him to report to pre-trial supervision every 30 days.
Trump on Monday agreed to post a US$200,000 bond and accepted bail conditions that would bar him from threatening co-defendants or witnesses in the case.
In a 41-count Georgia indictment unveiled last week, he and 18 other defendants are charged with racketeering and other crimes over their efforts to reverse Trump’s loss in the state to Mr Biden.
Prosecutors are seeking a trial in March but the number of defendants and complexity of the case could lead to delays.
