Two of 18 co-defendants indicted with former President Donald Trump earlier in August surrendered to the Fulton County jail Tuesday.
Scott Hall, a bail bondsman in Atlanta, was accused by a Fulton County grand jury of conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot counting machines at the Coffee County election office Jan. 7, 2021, CNN reported. Hall was reportedly captured on surveillance video at the Coffee County election office that day and admitted before the grand jury he had gained access to a voting machine, the outlet stated.
🚨BREAKING: The first two criminal defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Trump and 18 co-defendants have been booked in the Fulton County jail.
Scott Hall was booked this morning. John Eastman, one of the main architects of Trump’s plan to halt the…
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) August 22, 2023
John Eastman, a conservative lawyer, was accused of playing “a key role” in an alleged scheme to send an alternate slate of electors to Congress in an effort to “disrupt and delay the joint session of Congress” on Jan. 6, 2021, with the intention to alter the outcome of the 2020 election, CBS News reported.
In the indictment against Eastman, the lawyer was accused of sending an email stating that “the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia needed to meet on December 14, 2020, sign six sets of certificates of vote, and mail them ‘to the President of the Senate and to other officials,'” the outlet stated.
Eastman declared he was surrendering “to an indictment that should never have been brought,” in a statement provided by his lawyers upon his arrival at the Fulton County jail, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Eastman further told reporters outside the jail that he planned on “vigorously [contesting] every count of the indictment” against him, adding that if the law was “faithfully applied” he and his co-defendants would be “fully vindicated,” according to ABC News. (RELATED: ‘Get A Conviction Before The Election’: Legal Experts Weigh In On Georgia Trump Indictment)
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis previously gave those charged under the indictment until noon Aug. 25 to surrender to authorities, CBS News reported. Trump has stated that he plans to surrender himself to Fulton County officials on Thursday, Aug. 24.