The Daily Fuckup

Rudy Giuliani filed a written not-guilty plea on Sept. 1, 2023, and waived his scheduled Sept. 6 arraignment in the Fulton County election-interference case. The filing kept him in the case as one of the named defendants charged in the Aug. 14 indictment, but it did not change the underlying allegations against him.

The Georgia indictment alleges that Giuliani and other defendants took part in efforts to pressure election workers, lawmakers and state officials after Donald Trump lost the state in 2020. Those claims remain allegations in the charging document, not findings by a court.

A written not-guilty plea is a standard procedural step. It allows a defendant to contest the charges while avoiding an in-person arraignment, and it moves the case forward into later motions and pretrial proceedings.

Giuliani was among the most prominent public advocates for Trump’s post-election claims. His Sept. 1 filing added him to the list of defendants who had already begun responding to the case, while the broader prosecution continued to test how far the post-election effort went under Georgia law.