UNITED STATES: Over the decades, Donald Trump has been photographed countless times, spanning from his initial years as a real estate tycoon to his role as a reality television personality and throughout his eventful four-year tenure in the White House.
However, the mug shot that Georgia police released on Thursday, which depicts a scowling Trump just moments after he was detained on more than a dozen felony counts at an Atlanta jail, may turn out to be the most well-known of them, disseminated throughout the world by both supporters and detractors.
Trump, who is vying for the presidency in 2024, has already created history by being the first former American president to be accused of a crime—not once, but four times. But this was the first time he had to stand for a booking picture.
In contrast to other authorities who gave him a pass, Georgia chose to process him like any other criminal defendant, including fingerprinting and a mug photo, in a lawsuit arising from Trump’s attempts to reverse his state’s decision to deny him the right to the presidency in the 2020 election.
In the image, a scowling Trump, 77, stares into the camera with his jaw clenched, brow wrinkled, and red tie tied firmly.
Trump didn’t waste any time uploading the mug shot on his own social media network, Truth Social, as well as on X, the website that was once known as Twitter, in order to raise money.
Trump’s X tweet was his first in more than two and a half years, as his account had been suspended following his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. A few times after purchasing X last year, Elon Musk reinstated the former US President’s account.
Trump posted the image of himself along with a donation request on his campaign website, stating that he had been “arrested despite having committed no crime.”
Counterfeit mug shots had been in circulation since his initial indictment in March, relating to payments made to a porn star before the 2016 election.
“We want them to take a mug shot. We want to put it on a T-shirt. It will go worldwide. It will be a more popular image than the Mona Lisa,” stated Laura Loomer, a former Republican congressional candidate.
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