Mark Meadows pleads not guilty to Georgia election case charges

ATLANTA (AP) — Trump White Dwelling chief of personnel Mark Meadows has pleaded not responsible to fees accusing him of participating in an unlawful scheme to try to overturn the final results of the 2020 election in Georgia and will not look in court docket in Atlanta this 7 days.

Fulton County Remarkable Courtroom Judge Scott McAfee had scheduled arraignment hearings for Wednesday for Meadows, former President Donald Trump and the other 17 people billed last month in a sprawling indictment. By midday Tuesday, all of the defendants experienced filed paperwork pleading not guilty in filings with the courtroom and waived their rights to an arraignment hearing.

During an arraignment listening to, defendants have the right to have the fees towards them read and to enter a official plea. Trump pleaded not responsible in a court filing Thursday and Giuliani entered his plea Friday, with the rest of the pleas trickling in around a number of times.

Even though all of the defendants experienced filed the paperwork by Tuesday, some of them did not file 48 hrs forward of the scheduled arraignments as necessary by the choose. And, although the choose requires the waiver to be “personally signed by the defendant,” a law firm for Misty Hampton, previous elections director in Coffee County, submitted the waiver without having getting Hampton to sign it herself. It was not instantly apparent no matter whether the decide would reject any of the waivers as a end result.

Meadows and four other folks are in search of to shift the fees versus them to federal court. But through a listening to very last 7 days on Meadows’ request, U.S. District Decide Steve Jones produced clear that if he experienced not dominated by the arraignment date or if the scenario was not moved to federal courtroom, Meadows would not be excused from arraignment.

Legal professionals Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell have just about every submitted calls for for a speedy demo, which means their trials would have to commence by early November, and have each individual asked to be attempted by yourself. The decide scheduled a listening to on Wednesday on their motions to sever on their own from the other individuals.

Soon after Chesebro submitted his speedy demo need, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis requested McAfee to set an Oct. 23 demo day for all defendants. The decide established a demo to start that day for Chesebro on your own. Trump’s law firm has filed a movement inquiring that he be tried individually from any defendant who asks for a fast demo.

In the course of Wednesday’s listening to, McAfee wrote, he intends to check with prosecutors how very long they anticipate it to choose to present their case versus all 19 defendants jointly or for any groupings of defendants, such as the number of witnesses they plan to phone and the selection and dimension of exhibits they will most likely introduce.