Fact Check: Viral mugshot of Donald Trump is AI generated

Hyderabad: Several social media users have posted a mugshot of former US President Donald Trump.

An X user @MichaelSteele, the former Republican National Committee chairman and former lieutenant governor of Maryland has posted an image of Trump claiming it to be his mugshot before getting jailed.

The tweet reads: “Over 80 times. And now indictments handed down in Georgia for a racketeering conspiracy to steal the 2020 election. This is the once and future nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States. Pathetic.”

Against the backdrop of Donald Trump and 18 other associates charged on 14th August 2023 in Georgia as part of a sweeping indictment alleging, that they schemed to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss and stop the peaceful transition of power this image is taking rounds.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the image is AI-generated.

We started our investigation by performing a reverse image search using the viral image of Trump's mugshot. However, we could not find any results.

This indicated that the image could be AI created as no such moksh short has been uploaded by any media outlet as of today that is 17th August 2023.

Moreover, taking a cue from this, performing a keyword search we found a media report on Forbes calling the image using the same tweet by Michel Steele as AI generated and fake dated 15the Aught 2023.

Forbes report States: “The image below was shared by Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, on Tuesday and has been seen by over 1 million people. But it was generated using an artificial intelligence software. It’s not immediately clear what AI program was used to create the image, but some popular services include Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and Midjourney.”

However, according to a report in Daily Mail titled ‘Donald Trump's FIRST mugshot could be released: Next steps for the ex-president who has to surrender by next FRIDAY’ dated 15 August 2023.

Former President Donald Trump has not had a mugshot taken so far in the three cases in which he has been charged. That could change in Georgia. Instead, AI has been employed by social media users to mock up what a mugshot might look like.

The report reads, “His arrest and processing will almost certainly make allowances for his status as a former commander-in-chief. However, the local sheriff has already suggested that Trump will have to pose for a mugshot.”

Similar AI-generated mugshots of Trump can be seen here.