The Fulton County District Attorney’s office referred to documents indicting former President Donald Trump as “fictitious” after posting them and then taking them down, and later posting documents with the same charges after the grand jury had made its decision late Monday.
The Fulton County DA’s office, headed by Fani Willis, released a document Monday outlining the charges against Trump related to claims that he attempted to overthrow the 2020 election. The charges were originally reported by Reuters, which later switched to reporting that the indictment was set to be released, according to CNBC; the Fulton County Clerk later denied the veracity of the document even though the indictment had the same charges in it.
“The Office of Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts has learned of a fictitious document that has been circulated online and reported by various media outlets related to The Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury,” Fulton County said regarding the initial release of the indictment document.
“No, I can’t tell you anything about what you refer to,” Willis told a reporter in a press conference asking about the identical documents, according to CNN. “What I can tell you is that we have a grand jury here in Fulton County. They deliberated until almost eight o’clock, if not after eight o’clock. An indictment was returned. It was true billed, and you now have an indictment. I am not an expert on clerk duties or even administrative duties. I wouldn’t know how to work that system, so I’m not gonna speculate.”
Trump was charged with 13 separate charges, all of which are felonies, with one being an allegation of a violation of the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act, according to the document.
“The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process,” Drew Findling and Jennifer Little, attorneys for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “This was not a simple administrative mistake.
“A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office, yet it somehow made its way to the clerk’s office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated,” the Trump campaign continued. “This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception.”
Eighteen other people were indicted in the 98-page document detailing the charges, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Mark Meadows.
The Office of Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Will Kessler on August 11, 2023
