The sheriff in the Georgia county where former President Donald Trump is expected to be indicted in connection to his attempts to overturn the presidential election results in the state has said that Mr Trump will receive no special treatment and that a mugshot will be taken “if warranted”.
Fulton County Sheriff appeared on CNN on Sunday, saying that “first and foremost, we will follow our own policies and procedures”.
“We simply don’t … give any leniency just because of your status. Ultimately, there may be a court order that his lawyers may ask for, there may be some alternate … processes around it, but we’ll stay focused on our policies and procedures. And if a mugshot is warranted, we’ll follow that policy and procedure as well,” he added.
“We have a lot of high-profile cases here in Fulton County in Atlanta. And so again, we treat everybody equally,” he said.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to indict Mr Trump any day this month in relation to her years-long investigation into the ex-president’s conduct. It’s set to be Mr Trump’s fourth indictment of this year.
“The work is accomplished,” Ms Willis recently told local news stations. “We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”
Sheriff Labat told CNN on Sunday that Atlanta police have taken lessons from Mr Trump’s previous arraignments.
“We’ve certainly learned from both New York as well as Miami. So, we’ve got a lot of different agencies involved,” he said. “And so ultimately, we’ve created a force multiplier and really just focusing on the moment. So, again, you mentioned roads being closed, and several other security opportunities for us that we keep close to the vest. But other than that, we are standing ready.”
Ms Willis has said that she’s been receiving a high number of threats in connection to her work prosecuting Mr Trump.
“They’re very grotesque things. We’re on family television. I don’t even know that I like to say all of them but ‘slave whore’ is one of them. I’ve been called pretty much everything but a child of God,” Ms Willis said, according to WSB-TV.
“I’m receiving phone calls and emails and communications that are derogatory in nature. They don’t always state what the reason is that their calling. But I’ve probably been called the N word more times in the last two-and-a-half years than most — a hundred people combined,” she added.
Sheriff Labat told CNN that “we investigate every threat and she and her team have forwarded us those threats. I’ve received threats personally, both text, cell phone messages … and e-mails. It’s easy to be a keyboard bully, but our goal is to focus on the safety and security of our community and really stick to the plan”.
When asked if the threats are directly connected to Mr Trump, Sheriff Labat said, “Oh, absolutely”.
“They mentioned the former president by name in many of them – e-mails, social media, again, including voicemails,” he added.
“We’re focusing on all of the courthouse security, the surrounding security and just trying to be prepared as we possibly can,” Sheriff Labat told CNN.
