It may go down as one of the biggest political snafus in history; the arrest of former President Donald Trump and having him pose for a booking mugshot.
The image, taken by the Fulton County, Georgia Sheriff’s Department has gone viral, and according to published reports, has raised at least $7.1 million for the former president’s re-election campaign. The scowling image appears on T-shirts, posters, bumper stickers, and beverage coolers, according to published reports.
CNN is reporting the fundraising total for the three weeks leading up to his appearance at the Fulton County Courthouse for formal booking was nearly $20 million.
Meanwhile, Trump’s popularity among GOP voters remains strong, with him far ahead of the pack of other Republican contenders for the 2024 nomination. While Newsweek’s coverage attempts to show the former president may be in a little trouble with a slight decline in the numbers, the magazine notes, “he still maintains the majority support among GOP voters with 50 percent backing and continues to remain far ahead of his competitors with a 38-percent edge over his closest rival.”
This comes from a recent Emerson College survey showing a slight decline in Trump’s popularity, yet he still maintains a 38-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the former president’s nearest rival.
Interestingly, Spectrum News has published a report on whether using Trump’s mug shot image commercially is even permissible.
The news agency quotes Prof. Betsy Rosenblatt at Case Western University’s School of Law, who says there might be copyright problems for people hoping to profit from the Trump mugshot. She says that without authorization, people may be prohibited from reproducing it.
Just because it went viral does not mean the mugshot image is necessarily in the public domain.
There could be major political consequences for the people determined to make Trump a public whipping boy. It already seems to be backfiring in a substantial—and financial—way. Last Friday alone, according to cf,.org, Trump raised $4.18 million. And, just like before, his poll numbers seem to have risen with the new indictment and booking, which became something of a spectacle.
A federal judge has announced a trial date for March 4, 2024 in the case being brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in which Trump is alleged to have interfered in the 2020 election. As noted by Fox News, that is right in the middle of the Republican presidential debate calendar.
On top of it all, the New York Times is now questioning whether the mugshot was even necessary. In the other three Trump cases, booking photos were not taken. After all, it’s not as though nobody would recognize Trump if he skipped out on bail.
