REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Turnout was weak outside the courthouse on Thursday afternoon as twice-impeached and thrice-indicted former President Donald Trump arrived at his arraignment on charges that he conspired to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, appearing in the same D.C. courthouse in which countless MAGA faithful have been prosecuted for their roles in the failed attempt to keep Trump in power.
By most counts, only a small handful of people showed up to support Trump, far from the ravenous crowds he had apparently been hoping for. The disgraced one-termer arrived via motorcade before heading inside the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse to be processed by the U.S. Marshals Service. While inside, a large contingent of uniformed police milled about outside, chatting, in the absence of much, if any, turmoil.
Despite writing in an all-caps social media post on Thursday that he was “GOING TO WASHINGTON, D.C., TO BE ARRESTED FOR HAVING CHALLENGED A CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN ELECTION,” Trump will not be arrested or detained—and he won’t even have his mugshot taken, Marshals spokesman Brady McCarron told The Daily Beast. That’s because Trump is technically responding to a summons to appear, not showing up pursuant to an arrest warrant.