Trump defiant after surrendering on election interference charges – live | Donald Trump

Donald Trump tweeted for the first time since 2021 on Thursday night, posting the mugshot from his booking at Fulton county jail in Georgia on charges of election interference earlier on Thursday.

The former president returned to the social media site, now known as X, with a post linking to his website and featuring the words “Election interference! Never surrender!” following his surrender at Fulton County jail on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Trump has previously said he would stick with his new platform Truth Social. He reportedly signed an 18-month exclusivity agreement to post on Truth Social when it launched, which expired in late June.

It has been Trump’s main source of direct communication with his followers since he began posting on the app regularly in May. The former president has used it to promote his allies, criticise his opponents and defend his reputation amid legal scrutiny from state, congressional and federal investigators.

Trump had 6.4m followers on Truth Social as of Thursday. He still has more than 88m Twitter followers despite being banned from the platform following the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress by his supporters, amid the risk of further incitement of violence.

On 19 November the San Francisco-based app reversed the ban under billionaire Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who bought Twitter last year.

Musk restored the former president’s account after running a poll that received more than 15m votes and just narrowly won at nearly 52%. Despite the account being restored, Trump did not tweet until Thursday.

He has previously used Twitter and other social media platforms to make false claims that his defeat in the 2020 election was due to widespread voter fraud and to share other conspiracy theories.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. The former US president, Donald Trump, surrendered to Fulton county authorities on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia.

Trump, who has been indicted four times this year, tweeted a photo of his mugshot and the words “Election interference. Never surrender!” along with a link to his website, which directs to a fundraising page, after his release from the Atlanta jail.

Trump’s booking marked yet another stunning moment for the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 race as he became the first ever US president to have a mugshot taken. He denies wrongdoing in Georgia and in three other indictments which have produced a total of 91 criminal charges.

The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon today for the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case to turn themselves in to be booked. In a clear sign of her belief that her team is ready to go to trial immediately, Willis asked for the trial of all 19 defendants to start on 23 October.

Within hours, Trump’s legal team filed a motion opposing such a quick trial date, underscoring the former president’s overarching strategy to delay proceedings as much as possible – potentially until after the 2024 presidential election.

Here’s what else we’re watching today:

• 12pm eastern time: The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday for all 19 defendants in the Georgia election subversion case to turn themselves in to be booked.

• 2pm: Vice-president Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will welcome the Las Vegas Aces to the White House to celebrate their 2022 WNBA Championship.

• President Joe Biden is vacationing in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He plans to return to Washington on Saturday.

• The House and Senate are out.