Trump enters not guilty plea in Georgia election case, waives hearing
ATLANTA – Donald Trump entered a plea of not guilty to charges alleging he participated in a vast criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia, and he waived his right to an in-person arraignment hearing in the matter, according to a court filing from his attorney in the Fulton County election interference case.
The written plea was filed Thursday by Steve Sadow, an Atlanta criminal defense attorney who was tapped Aug. 24 to lead the former president’s Georgia-based legal team. The filing means Trump won’t return to Atlanta on Wednesday, where Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the proceedings, has scheduled arraignment hearings for Trump and the 18 co-defendants in the sprawling criminal racketeering case.
In the filing, titled “President Trump’s entry of plea of not guilty and enter of waiver of appearance at arraignment,” the former president stated that he was “freely and voluntarily” waiving his right to be present at his arraignment and have his charges read to him in open court. Three other co-defendants had already waived their right to an arraignment and entered a not-guilty plea. A fourth, former campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, did later Thursday.
Trump is facing 13 counts in the Georgia case, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents. The former president has denied any wrongdoing and has condemned the investigation, led by Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis, as a “political witch hunt.”
Trump surrendered last week at the Fulton County Jail, a notorious Atlanta lockup where he was booked and quickly released on a $200,000 bond that includes restrictions on his conduct, including provisions that bar him from intimidating witnesses or fellow co-defendants or making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community.”
Like the 18 others indicted in the case, Trump was fingerprinted and photographed, resulting in the first mug shot of a former American president. With Thursday’s filing, Trump became the fourth defendant to plead not guilty.
Asked why Trump had chosen to forego the media spectacle that an in-person arraignment would have become, two Trump advisers said the former president and his team view the indictments as politically useful, with the campaign raising money off them. But that doesn’t mean that Trump finds them enjoyable, with both advisers saying he was “angry” about the prosecutions.
“He’s already had to fly all over the country for these indictments,” said one of the advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about Trump’s perspective. “It’s not like it’s fun to spend the day in court.”
Trump’s attorney has signaled he will vigorously challenge the charges against his client, who he said never should have been charged in the case. On Thursday, Sadow filed a motion to sever Trump’s case from other co-defendants, including former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who requested speedy trials and have been granted a start date of Oct. 23.
Sadow argued he needs more time to prepare a defense in such a complex anti-racketeering case. He also cited his own scheduling conflict due to an unrelated trial set to start in Florida on Sept. 26 and last three weeks. That trial is before Aileen Cannon, the federal judge in the Southern District of Florida who is overseeing the case against Trump regarding his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Last week, McAfee approved an Oct. 23 trial date for Chesebro, though Willis has argued that she wants to try all 19 defendants, including Trump, on that date.
Separately Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga., told reporters at a news conference he would not call a special session of the General Assembly to seek to remove Willis from office, as several conservative lawmakers have requested. Kemp said his concerns about “highly charged indictments” during an election cycle “have been well-documented,” but his intervention would be improper and possibly even unconstitutional.
“We have a law in the state of Georgia that clearly outlines the legal steps that can be taken if constituents believe their local prosecutors are violating their oath by engaging in unethical or illegal behavior,” he said. “Up to this point I have not seen any evidence at that D.A. Willis’s actions or lack thereof warrant action by the Prosecuting Attorney Oversight Commission. But that will ultimately be a decision that the commission will make.”
Trump is expected to follow his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in seeking to move his case from state to federal court. Meadows spent more than four hours testifying on Monday before U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones, who is considering Meadows’s petition to move his case to federal court, where he will then seek to dismiss charges.
In his testimony, Meadows sought to portray himself as Trump’s gatekeeper and depicted his involvement in efforts to question Joe Biden’s legitimate victory in Georgia as part of his duties as Trump’s top White House aide and senior adviser. His attorneys have argued that should qualify his case for federal removal since they say he was acting under the “color” of his federal position.
But prosecutors have argued that Meadows’s post-election efforts, including visiting a suburban Atlanta ballot-processing center and arranging the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, violated the federal Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their official roles to influence an election. They say Meadows saw “no distinction” between his White House work and the Trump campaign and have pressed Jones to deny Meadows’s petition – an outcome which could have a sweeping effect on other current and future removal requests in the case, including Trump’s expected petition.