By Kate Brumback
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's office 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.
When asked by The Associated Press why there was a case number on the document, Alexander declined to comment.
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.”
Trump's legal team
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.
Trump's legal team said it was not a “simple administrative mistake," but showed that the prosecutors' office had “no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process.”
"This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception, Trump lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg said
Legal experts said it was likely a clerical error listing charges prosecutors were planning to ask the grand jury to vote on. Prosecutors draft indictments and present them to the grand jury, which ultimately decides whether to hand charges down.
“I think this tells us what they are planning to present to the grand jury, and the grand jury could say no,” said Clark Cunningham, a Georgia State University law professor. Cunningham said while the error will give Trump's legal team fodder to complain, it likely won't ultimately impact the case.
“It will not scuttle the case. Will his lawyers make a lot of noise about it? Yes, they will. Will Mr. Trump make a lot of noise about it? Yes, he will. I’m sure there will have to be an explanation for it,” Cunningham said.
One person who said he’dbeen called to testify to the grand jury suggested on Monday that the process may be moving more quickly than anticipated. George Chidi, an independent journalist, had tweeted previously that he was asked to testify on Tuesday, but later posted he was going to court on Monday, adding: “They’re moving faster than they thought.”
Chidi wrote in The Intercept last month that he barged “into a semi-clandestine meeting of Republicans pretending to be Georgia’s official electors in December 2020.” He described being thrown out of the room just after entering, told that it was an “education meeting.”
The grand jury filing Monday lists more than a dozen felony counts, including Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO. Willis has long been expected to levy that charge against Trump and his associates, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Two counts — including solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer — lists the date of offense as Jan. 2, 2021, which was when Trump during a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he wanted to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state. Other counts list the date of offense as Sept. 17, 2021, which is the same day Trump sent Raffensperger a message urging him to investigate “large scale voter fraud," decertify the election and “announce the true winner” if the investigation found the fraud.
Former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, who had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, said as she left the Fulton County courthouse late Monday morning that she had been questioned for about 40 minutes. Former Democratic state Rep. Bee Nguyen also confirmed that she testified. News outlets reported that Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the secretary of state’s office, was seen arriving at the courthouse earlier Monday.
“No individual is above the law, and I will continue to fully cooperate with any legal proceedings seeking the truth and protecting our democracy,” Nguyen said in a statement.
Nguyen and Jordan both attended legislative hearings in December 2020 during which former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others made false claims of widespread election fraud in Georgia. Trump lawyer John Eastman also appeared during at least one of those hearings and said the election had not been held in compliance with Georgia law and that lawmakers should appoint a new slate of electors.
Sterling and his boss, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — both Republicans — forcefully pushed back against allegations of widespread problems with Georgia's election.
Trump famously called Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, and suggested the state's top elections official could help “find” the votes Trump needed to beat Biden. It was the release of a recording of that phone call that prompted Willis to open her investigation about a month later.
Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Boston. Updated August 14, 2023 at 5:24 p.m. ET with latest details.
