Trump co-defendants begin to surrender in Georgia election case

Lawyer John Eastman and Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, surrendered to the authorities on Tuesday.

Former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer and another defendant, Cathy Latham, turned themselves in early on Wednesday.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, is expected to surrender on Thursday.

He faces 13 charges including racketeering and election meddling. While Mr Trump is yet to enter a plea, he denies wrongdoing and has said the charges are politically motivated.

The Fulton County district attorney's office last week charged the former president and 18 allies with attempting to overturn his defeat in the closely contested state.

Prosecutors have set a deadline of noon local time on Friday for each of the defendants to surrender and be booked into the Atlanta jail.

Prosecutors consider Mr Eastman, 63, to be a key figure in the plot to meddle with the 2020 election results.

The California law professor represented Mr Trump in a lawsuit trying to overturn election results in four states he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.

On Tuesday, he was released on a $100,000 (£78,500) bond agreement after being booked and spending a couple of hours inside the jail.

He was then asked outside court if he still believed the 2020 election was stolen. "Absolutely, no question in my mind," he said, adding that he would "vigorously contest every count of the indictment".

Mr Hall earlier became the first defendant in the Georgia case to turn himself in.

The bail bondsman from Atlanta faces seven charges related to his alleged involvement in a voting systems breach in Coffee County in January 2021.

One of the defendants, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, filed court papers asking a judge for an immediate ruling on a bid to move his case from Fulton County to a federal court, or - alternatively - issue an order shielding him from arrest in Georgia.

The filing comes after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis denied a request to delay Mr Meadows' arrest. An email from Ms Willis included in the filing said Mr Meadows "is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction".

A similar request was made by former justice department official Jeffrey Clark earlier. Lawyers for both men have argued that their alleged actions should be handled by the federal court system, as they were federal officials at their time of their alleged involvement in the case.

Mr Trump was granted a $200,000 bond as well as other release conditions, such as being barred from using social media to directly or indirectly threaten alleged co-conspirators or potential witnesses.

The former president, however, has drawn criticism for not paying the legal fees of his co-defendants in the case.

One of them, ex-Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that "this has became a bigger principle than just one man. So why isn't MAGA, Inc funding everyone's defence?"

Another former Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, now a fierce critic of his former boss, told CNN on Tuesday that Mr Trump was not paying the fees of another former attorney, ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The BBC has contacted Mr Giuliani's lawyer for comment.

The BBC's US partner CBS News, meanwhile, reports that a lawyer for Mr Giuliani will meet prosecutors later on Wednesday ahead of his surrender.

The Georgia case is the latest in a series of criminal indictments filed against Mr Trump.

He faces 78 charges across three other criminal cases, including an investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

-bbc