Atlanta, August 14, 2023 — A list of criminal charges in Georgia against former President Donald Trump briefly appeared Monday on a Fulton County website, but prosecutors said Trump had not been indicted in their long-running investigation of the 2020 presidential election.
A Fulton County grand jury began hearing from more witnesses Monday. Shortly after 12 p.m., Reuters reported on a list of several criminal charges to be brought against Trump, including state racketeering counts, conspiracy to commit false statements and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said the filing was taken down quickly. A spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the report of charges being filed was “inaccurate,” but declined to comment further.
Fulton County courts clerk Che Alexander later released a statement that seemed to only raise more questions, calling the posted document “fictitious,” but failing to explain how it got on the court’s website. The clerk’s office said documents without official case numbers “are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such.” But the document that appeared online did have a case number on it.
Trump and and his allies, who have characterized the investigation as politically motivated, immediately seized on the apparent error to claim that the process is rigged. Trump’s campaign aimed to fundraise off of it, sending out an email with the since-deleted document embedded.
“The Grand Jury testimony has not even FINISHED – but it’s clear the District Attorney has already decided how this case will end,” Trump wrote in the email, which included links to give money to his campaign. “They are trying to rob me of my right to due process. This is an absolute DISGRACE.”
Taylor Budowich, who leads the former president’s supportive super PAC, posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter that the grand jury was “just a formality for these Banana Republic proceedings.”
It was unclear why the list was posted while grand jurors were still hearing from witnesses in the sprawling investigation into actions taken by Trump and others in their efforts to overturn his narrow loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. It was also unclear whether grand jurors were aware on Monday that the filing was posted online. They still would need to vote on charges, so the counts listed in the posting may or may not ultimately be brought against Trump. – AP
