Donald Trump's Mugshot Released, Heralding New Era For The Internet, Memes And Politics

Donald Trump's mugshot, arguably one of the most hotly anticipated photographs in United States history, has finally been released to the general public by the Fulton County Sheriff's Office. It is notably the first mugshot taken of a U.S. President.

The mugshot comes as part of Trump's Georgia Indictment, his fourth this year, in which he was arrested on a charge of allegedly leading a conspiracy to fraudulently overturn the election results of the state in the 2020 Presidential Election when he narrowly lost to President Joe Biden. Trump is listed at 6'3" and 215 pounds in the arrest (though few believe it, as Trump's aides gave officials those numbers).

The mugshot spread online following a tweet from @ettingermentum roughly thirty minutes before the shot was declared official.

The indictment charges Trump with violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute. Key points of the charges levied against Trump involve him asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffsberger to "find" nearly 12,000 Trump votes in the state so that he could defeat Biden, plotting to send fraudulent electors to Congress to vote for him and having associates illegally breach Georgia voting machines to search for evidence of fraud. If convicted, Trump could face 5-20 years in prison.

Though this is Trump's fourth indictment of 2023, following indictments in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, the alleged mishandling of classified documents case and the Capitol Insurrection case, it is the first to have yielded a mugshot. In the Stormy Daniels case, the state of New York elected not to take a mugshot and the other two are being tried in federal court where mugshots are not taken or released to the public.

However, after Trump was indicted this week, officials in Georgia voiced their intent to try the case as they would any other, which would mean Trump and his 18 co-conspirators named in the indictment would receive mugshots.

Over the course of the week, these have begun trickling in, with mugshots for high-profile politicians and individuals like Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows making waves on social media earlier this week.

Still, social media and much of the world eagerly anticipated Trump's rumored mugshot as the hashtag "#TrumpMugshot" trended on X throughout the day.

Refreshing that newsfeed #TrumpMugshot pic.twitter.com/W8qGgx5gZ1

— Gumbo Roux ₳ (@WhoDatTide44) August 24, 2023

Trump's mugshot has long been something of a fantasy for his critics, as throughout his presidency, several liberals voiced how they longed to see Trump in prison, while some even drew fan art imagining his mugshot.

After his arrest in the Stormy Daniels case, AI-generated artwork imagining Trump's mugshot circulated widely on social media.

Now that the real thing is here, many social media users expressed joy and fired off jokes about the image as it quickly became a viral moment around the internet.

Prior to its publication, much digital ink was spilled about the potential fame and impact of Trump's mugshot. Some speculated that it could become one of the most famous images in history, while others anticipated it could break the internet in various ways.

Now that it's out, all that's left to do is see what the internet – and the world – does with it.