Trump Fundraising Email: I Was ‘Tortured’ in Jail

In a fundraising email Monday, former President Donald Trump’s campaign claimed that he was “tortured” at the Fulton County jail in Georgia when he surrendered and had his mug shot taken last summer.

“I want you to remember what they did to me,” the email read. “They tortured me in the Fulton County Jail, and TOOK MY MUGSHOT. So guess what? I put it on a mug for the WHOLE WORLD TO SEE!”

The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has frequently sent out fundraising appeals using the mug shot and Monday’s email was sent out to promote black coffee mugs with a black-and-white picture of Trump’s mug shot on one side and the Trump 2024 campaign logo on the other.

Trump pulled up to the Fulton County jail last August in a presidential-style motorcade and surrendered himself as a stipulation of his criminal indictment in Georgia. He faces 13 counts stemming from alleged efforts to alter the outcome of the 2020 election in the Peach State.

During the roughly 20-minute process at the prison, Trump was booked, fingerprinted, and photographed for his historic mug shot, which is the first known one taken of a current or former U.S. president.

According to The Hill, a similar fundraising email with language on torture was sent by the Trump campaign in May to promote the coffee mugs.

Trump wasted no time in capitalizing on his mug shot, with his joint fundraising committee hawking merchandise featuring the photo less than two hours after he left the Fulton County jail.

The former president walked out of Atlanta’s infamous Rice Street Jail at 7:55 p.m. on Aug. 24, 2023, and by 9:22 p.m., the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee was selling T-shirts, mugs, beverage coolers, bumper stickers, and other products featuring Trump’s mug shot and the words “Never surrender,” CBS reported at the time.

Trump was among 19 people who were indicted in the Georgia election interference case. He and 14 others have pleaded not guilty, and four defendants have struck deals with prosecutors and pleaded guilty.

The Georgia case is 1 of 4 criminal cases in which the former president has been involved, including a trial in New York, where a jury convicted him May 30 on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a payment made by disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

Trump, who has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, is set to be sentenced July 11.