[LIVE THREAD] Donald Trump's arraignment in Miami; his supporters expected to protest outside of courthouse
Donald Trump will be arraigned in federal court today, Miami braces for protest
Court appearance takes place at 3 pm ET in Miami
Expected to plead not guilty to 37 counts
Will voluntarily turn himself in before that
Will be fingerprinted digitally
Mugshot will likely not made public
Will not be handcuffed
Former president Donald Trump will be arraigned in Miami federal court Tuesday to face 37 counts connected to his keeping hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach after leaving the White House.
Trump has his first appearance scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in downtown Miami. Federal agents and police, media and crowds of supporters and detractors are expected to fill the streets around the courthouse.
I'm torn on the mugshot. On the one hand, I agree with your general point. On the other hand, he'll just use a mugshot to bilk money out of his marks. But on the gripping hand, last time they just photoshopped a mugshot, so does it really matter if he has a real one?
Automatic upvote for the Niven reference. I don't think anything would stop Trump from grifting money from his supporters. It's like the kobayashi maru, the only options are the least bad ones.
In this case I think they've opted to split the difference and take a mugshot proving he's still being treated like a criminal (although it would have been better to have forced him to wear handcuffs), but not release it to deny him as much free fundraising fodder as they can.
Ultimately as you point out it won't really matter, they'll just photoshop something, but at least this way someone will need to put in the effort to make the image and we'll all get some entertainment about how horrendous of a job they'll inevitably do.