Despite all of his bravado and using his Georgia mugshot to rope in more supporters to send him donations, Donald Trump tried in vain to get his lawyers to block having the humiliating picture taken and disseminated to the public.
That is according to the Guardian's Hugo Lowell who appeared on MSNBC early Saturday morning on "The Katie Phang Show" to report on the timeline before the former president was forced to surrender on racketeering charges at an Atlanta jail on Thursday.
After the host and Lowell joked about Trump's self-reported weight of 215 pounds, Phang asked how the president approached his being taken into custody.
"You're telling me that Trump actually didn't want this mugshot? Because I see him fundraising off of this -- so talk to me about that," host Phang asked.
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"Ultimately when the mugshot came he decided fundraising would be the way out for him to kind of distract from, really, the indignity and humiliation of having to get a mugshot," Lowell explained. "But from our reporting, speaking to people in his inner circle for the days and weeks leading up to this surrender he was trying to get his lawyers to get an exemption so he wouldn't have to take this mugshot."
"And I think there's been a shift in mindset from him before Manhattan, before the hush-money case he was very gung ho," he continued. "He thought it would be cool if I can get arrested, put in handcuffs, get a mugshot taken looking defiant but that has changed through the [multiple] indictments and by the time he got to Georgia he really did not want an indictment, really did not want to get a mugshot."
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"He wanted none of his personal details to be public," he elaborated, "Then he was pushing his lawyers to negotiate that with the DA's office and the sheriff's office. And when the sheriff's made it very clear he was not gonna get any special treatment that was when they recalibrated and said, 'Fine, if we have to do this we'll fund-raise off it.'"
"But it was not his preference," he added.
Watch below or at the link.
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