George Santos has pleaded not guilty for the second time this year. Santos’ plea on Friday morning at the Eastern District of New York’s Long Island courthouse comes after prosecutors unveiled a superseding indictment earlier this month that charges the freshman Republican congressman with helping to orchestrate a fake donor scheme first exposed by Mother Jones in February, fabricating a $500,000 loan to his campaign, and making unauthorized transactions with donors’ credit cards.
As a defendant, it does not matter whether you actually did the crime or not. You always plead not guilty, because once you plead guilty, there’s no more negotiation. This preserves your legal options while your defense attorney(s) do their work.
Typically you plead guilty after negotiating… which guilty people should do
Yeah, and this was a plea to a superseding (read: new) indictment.
Look, I’m not trying to defend Santos as a human being. He’s obviously shitty at it. But pleading not guilty at arraignment is what everyone should do, and I’m sure his attorneys advised as such.