Bail for Donald Trump set at $200,000 in Georgia election interference case

A judge in Atlanta set bail for former President Donald Trump at $200,000 on Monday in the new election interference case against him, warning Trump not to intimidate or threaten witnesses or any of his 18 co-defendants as a condition of the bond agreement.

Trump, who posted on Truth Social late Monday that he would surrender to authorities in Atlanta on Thursday, is also sorting out logistical details in three other criminal cases that have been filed against him this year. Earlier on Monday, federal prosecutors pushed back on a request from his lawyers to postpone a separate election interference trial in Washington, D.C., until at least April 2026.

Under his bond agreement in Georgia, Trump cannot communicate with any co-defendants in the case except through his lawyers. He was also directed to “make no direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community,” including “posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual.”

The terms were more extensive than those set for other defendants in the case so far, which did not specifically mention social media. In the past, Trump has made inflammatory and sometimes false personal attacks on Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, who is leading the case.

Bond was set at $100,000 for John Eastman, one of the architects of a plan to use fake electors to keep Trump in power. according to court filings; a lawyer for Kenneth Chesebro, who also developed that plan, said the same amount was set for Chesebro.

Trump’s attacks continued Monday before his bond being set. In a post on Truth Social, he called Willis “crooked, incompetent, & highly partisan” and wrote that she “has allowed Murder and other Violent Crime to MASSIVELY ESCALATE.” In fact, homicides have fallen sharply in Atlanta in the first half of the year.

While Trump did not have to pay bail in the other criminal cases against him, the agreements posted for him and several of his co-defendants in Georgia on Monday require five- and six-figure sums. The defendants have to come up with only 10% of the bail amount, but even that could prove difficult for some, including Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for Trump, who is running out of money because of an array of legal entanglements.

Racketeering cases like this one can be particularly long and costly for defendants — in another racketeering case in the same court, involving a number of high-profile rappers, jury selection alone has gone on for seven months.

The costs clearly worry some of the defendants in the Trump case; one of them, Cathy Latham, a former Republican Party official in Georgia who acted as a fake elector for Trump in 2020, has set up a legal-defense fund, describing herself as “a retired public-school teacher living on a teacher’s pension.” The $3,645 she has initially raised is well short of a $500,000 goal.

Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who assisted Giuliani in his efforts to keep Trump in power after he lost in 2020, expressed frustration over the looming legal costs a few days after her indictment in the case. “Why isn’t MAGA, Inc. funding everyone’s defense?” she asked last week on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump and the other defendants were indicted last week on charges that they were part of a conspiracy to subvert the election results in Georgia, where Trump narrowly lost to Joe Biden.

The indictment laid out eight ways the defendants were accused of trying to reverse the election results as part of a “criminal enterprise”: by lying to the Georgia Legislature, lying to state officials, creating fake pro-Trump electors to circumvent the popular vote, harassing election workers, soliciting Justice Department officials, soliciting Vice President Mike Pence, breaching voting machines and engaging in a cover-up.

Trump has not been required to pay cash bail in the three other criminal cases he has been charged in this year — one in New York City and two federal cases brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, in Miami and Washington, D.C.

In Atlanta, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have emphasized a desire to treat the defendants as other accused felons would typically be treated in the city’s criminal justice system, with mug shots, fingerprinting and cash bails. But the Secret Service is sure to have security demands regarding the booking of a former president.

On Monday, lawyers for a number of the defendants were seen walking in and out of a complex of connected government buildings, including the Fulton County courthouse and a government office building, where they met with representatives from the district attorney’s office. The lawyers had little to say, including about when Trump might surrender.

“You’ll find out everything soon enough,” Drew Findling, Trump’s lead local lawyer, told reporters. “Patience is a virtue.”

Ellis worked with Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, in the weeks after Trump lost the election, traveling with him to various states to push claims of widespread fraud that were quickly debunked. But she has been a target of online attacks by allies of Trump for months, as she has been critical of the former president and has made supportive statements about his closest competitor in the Republican presidential primary, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

“I was reliably informed Trump isn’t funding any of us who are indicted,” Ellis posted on X last week. “Would this change if he becomes the nominee? Why then, not now?”

Asked about her post, Ellis replied in a text message, “Mounting a defense in these circumstances is exorbitantly expensive. I don’t have great personal wealth and am doing this on my own. I have been overwhelmed and blessed with the generosity and support of Christians and conservatives across the nation who want to help me.”

A person briefed on the matter said that Ellis had not asked for help from a legal-defense fund formed recently by Trump’s advisers but that she had sought help earlier and had been denied.

Trump has used a political action committee that is aligned with him, and that is replete with money he raised in small-dollar donations as he falsely claimed he was fighting widespread fraud after the 2020 election, to pay the legal bills of a number of allies, as well as his own.

But other defendants have been denied help with mounting legal bills long before they were charged. Among those asking for help are Giuliani; Trump’s political action committee, which has spent roughly $21 million on legal fees primarily for Trump but also for others connected to investigations into him, has so far covered only $340,000 for Giuliani.

All 19 defendants are required to turn themselves in by noon Friday.

“The order said it had to be by Friday, I believe, and he plans to follow the order,” Grubman said of Chesebro.