Not two hours after former President Donald Trump left the Fulton County, Georgia, jail, his joint fundraising committee was already selling merchandise featuring his booking photo.
The former president left the Fulton County Jail at 7:55 p.m. Thursday, and for the first time in his four indictments on felony charges, authorities took — and released — Trump’s mug shot. By 9:22 p.m., the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee was selling T-shirts, mugs, beverage coolers, bumper stickers and other merchandise with Trump’s face and the words “never surrender.”
The mug shot products range from $12 for a bumper sticker to $36 for long-sleeve T-shirts.
The former president is also fundraising off his latest surrender. In a fundraising email, Trump said he “walked into the lion’s den with one simple message on behalf of our entire movement: I WILL NEVER SURRENDER OUR MISSION TO SAVE AMERICA.”
Before the booking photo was taken, Trump and his aides had some discussion as to what the mug shot would look like. Ultimately, the former president wanted to look “defiant” in the face of charges that he thinks are politically motivated, CBS News has been told. CNN first reported that there was some discussion about Trump’s expression prior to the photo being taken.
In his first post to X, formerly called Twitter, in two-and-a-half years, Trump posted his booking photo.
Before he boarded his plane back to New Jersey, Trump told reporters that he and his co-defendants “did nothing wrong,” calling it “a very sad day for America.”
The former president has turned the indictments against him into a rallying cry for his supporters, claiming repeatedly that authorities are only going after him because he’s fighting for them.
In Georgia, Trump faces racketeering, election fraud and other charges, along with 18 co-defendants. Those co-defendants have until noon on Friday to turn themselves in, and all but one of them have done so. Trump’s co-defendants include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows; and attorneys Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.
