Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said Monday that former President Donald Trump will be arraigned on charges in the Georgia election case at 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 6.
His co-defendants also will be arraigned that day, including his former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who is scheduled to be arraigned at 9:45 a.m. The arraignments of the remaining 17 co-defendants will continue after that at 15-minute intervals.
Trump was charged with felony racketeering and numerous conspiracy counts as part of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ sweeping investigation into the effort by him and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the battleground state.
Trump and his co-defendants, who also were charged with racketeering, were booked at the Fulton County Jail last week.
The defendants in the sweeping 41-count indictment include Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. It also names lawyers lawyers John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis, and former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark, among others. All were charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, among other alleged offenses.
Trump has denied doing anything wrong in the 2020 election, accusing Willis of a mounting a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him. Several of his co-defendants also have denied wrongdoing.
Meadows, Clark and David Shafer — a former Georgia state senator, GOP chair and so-called fake elector who signed a certificate falsely declaring Trump won the state in 2020 — are seeking to move their cases to federal court.
A federal judge in Atlanta heard arguments Monday on a request by Meadows to move the Fulton County case to federal court. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones scheduled a Sept. 18 hearing to discuss defendant Clark’s request to move his case to federal court.
Booking and arraignment in criminal cases operate separately in Fulton County. The sheriff’s office noted that some arraignments may be virtual, as dictated by McAfee. It is unclear whether Trump’s arraignment will be in-person or virtual.
Following his surrender to Fulton County authorities last week, Trump was released from custody under agreed-upon conditions, including a $200,000 bond.
As part of the conditions, the former president is prohibited from doing anything a judge could interpret as an effort to intimidate co-defendants or witnesses or “otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”
More specifically, Trump “shall make no direct or indirect threat of any nature” against any co-defendant, witness or victim, the community or property in the community, the bond order said.
“The above shall include, but are not limited to, posts on social media or reposts of posts made by another individual on social media,” it said.
Prior to Trump and his co-defendants’ surrender last week, Willis initially proposed a March 4 trial date preceded by arraignments the week of Sept. 5.
“In light of Defendant Donald John Trump’s other criminal and civil matters pending in the courts of our sister sovereigns, the State of Georgia proposes certain deadlines that do not conflict with these other courts’ already-scheduled hearings and trial dates,” Willis wrote in a court filing this month.
She said the proposed dates accounted for defendants’ needs to review discovery and get ready for trial “but also to protect the State of Georgia’s and the public’s interest in a prompt resolution of the charges for which the Defendants have been indicted.”
Daniel Barnes and Charlie Gile contributed.
