Trump Posts Mug Shot After Being Reinstated on X

After being banned from Twitter following the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021, former President Donald Trump has made a return to the platform, now known as X, over two years later. On August 24th, 2023, Trump posted his first tweet since his account was reinstated on November 19th, 2022. His initial message consisted of an image displaying his mug shot taken during his booking at Georgia’s Fulton County jail. The charges against him relate to allegations of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential elections.

The image also reads “Election Interference” and “Never Surrender!” along with his website URL. In the tweet, Trump also linked to his website, where his mug shot is also prominently displayed with a lengthy note that begins: “Today, at the notoriously violent jail in Fulton County, Georgia, I was arrested despite not committing a crime. .”

In November of last year, Musk appeared to make the decision to restore Trump’s account based on the results of a Twitter poll. He asked people to vote on whether Trump should get back into his account. At the end of 24 hours, the chance to restore the former president won with 51.8 percent of the decision, which received more than 15 million votes. Musk admitted at the time that some of the survey activity came from “armies of bots and trolls.” Before the poll, Musk also said the decision to reinstate Trump would come from the newly formed moderators council, but he never followed through on that promise.

The website, then known as Twitter, banned Trump in early 2021 after he violated the company’s rules regarding incitement to violence. The initial freeze resulted in Trump losing access to his account for 12 hours, but days later the company made the decision permanent. At first, Trump tried to circumvent the ban and even went so far as to file a lawsuit against Twitter, which ultimately failed. After leaving Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, Trump went on to create Truth Social. After his return, Trump said he “saw no reason” to return to the platform. The promise of reaching a huge audience with something as dramatic as a mug shot was apparently too good for Trump to pass up, especially with a likely messy Republican primary on the horizon.