Former US President Donald Trump Thursday pleaded not guilty in case accusing him and others of illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
“As evidenced by my signature below, I do hereby waive formal arraignment and enter my plea of NOT GUILTY to the Indictment in this case,” Reuters reported as Trump saying in a court filing in Fulton County Superior Court.
The plea means that Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, won’t have to appear in person for an arraignment hearing in Fulton County Superior Court next week to face the charges.
The former US President and 18 others were charged earlier this month in a 41-count indictment that outlines an alleged scheme to subvert the will of Georgia voters who had chosen Democrat Joe Biden over the Republican incumbent in the presidential election.
Several other people charged in the indictment had already waived arraignment in filings with the court, saving them a trip to downtown Atlanta courthouse.
Trump previously travelled to Georgia on August 24 to turn himself in at the Fulton County Jail, where he became the first former president to have a mug shot taken.
The Georgia case is Trump’s fourth indictment.
Trump faces a New York state trial in March involving a hush money payment to a porn star Stormy Daniels in October 2016 to prevent her from discussing a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump in 2006 and a federal trial in May in Florida for allegedly mishandling federal classified documents.
Another indictment, in Washington federal court, accuses him of illegally seeking to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Trump is due to stand trial in March 2024 for that case, one day before Republican voters in more than a dozen US states decide whether to give him a chance to recapture the White House.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in all criminal cases.
