Donald Trump has pled not guilty following his indictment in Fulton County, Ga., on felony charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
The former president was scheduled to be arraigned in Fulton County Superior Court in September but will no longer have to appear, having entered his plea remotely.
Trump, 77, and his 18 co-defendants were indicted on August 14 by a grand jury convened by Fulton County district attorney Fanni Willis. Among the other defendants named in the nearly hundred-page indictment are former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as several members of Trump’s former legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell.
“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the indictment notes. “That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states.”
“I have to start getting ready to head down to Atlanta, Georgia” to “get ARRESTED by a Radical Left, Lowlife District Attorney, Fani Willis,” Trump wrote last Thursday on his social-media platform, Truth Social. “Arrest time: 7:30 p.m.” After arriving at the courthouse, Trump surrendered to authorities, was officially processed, and became the first American president to have a mug shot taken of him.
Later that day, Trump returned to X, the social-media site previously known as Twitter, sharing an image of his mugshot, captioned: “ELECTION INTERFERENCE. NEVER SURRENDER!” The post was the former president’s first on the platform since January 8, 2021, when Trump announced that he had no intentions of attending Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. He reportedly raised over $7 million within the days following his mugshot.
https://t.co/MlIKklPSJT pic.twitter.com/Mcbf2xozsY
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2023
Trump faces 13 felony charges, including conspiracy to commit forgery, filing false documents, solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, and violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
The former president agreed to a bond deal where he posted $200,000 as a condition for his release alongside an additional $80,000 for his racketeering charge and $10,000 for each of the remaining twelve counts against him.