Trump says turning himself in a ‘sad experience’

Former President Donald Trump said that the experience of turning himself in at the Fulton County jail Thursday night was sad.

In an interview with Newsmax hours after he was booked on charges that he illegally plotted to reverse the state’s 2020 election, the former president called it, “a very sad experience, and it’s a very sad day for our country.”

Mr. Trump arrived at the Georgia jail around 7:30 p.m. Thursday and was fingerprinted, booked and had his mug shot taken. He was released on a $200,000 bond. He is being charged on 13 counts for trying to overturn the election results in Georgia in 2020.

“I never heard the words ‘mug shot.’ They didn’t teach me that at the Wharton School of Finance,” Mr. Trump joked. He graduated from that University of Pennsylvania institution in 1968 before earning a fortune in real estate development.

To Fox News Digital Thursday night, Mr. Trump said Georgia officials “insisted” on a mug shot, and that it was his first time taking one.

“It is not a comfortable feeling — especially when you’ve done nothing wrong,” he said.

This is the fourth time this year that Mr. Trump has faced criminal charges.

“I went through an experience that I never thought I’d have to go through, but then I’ve gone through the same experience three other times,” Mr. Trump said. “In my whole life, I didn’t know anything about indictments. And now I’ve been indicted like four times.”

In his previous criminal cases in Manhattan, Florida and the District of Columbia, no mug shot was taken.

In both interviews, Mr. Trump blamed what he called a “weaponized Justice Department.”