ATLANTA — Fulton County officials are adding more context about what happened hours before a grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump as they claimed a "fictitious document" was circulated online.
Around noon Monday, Reuters reported that a document was briefly posted online that listed out a RICO charge and multiple other supposed charges for false statements and forgery tied to Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
The clerk's office on Monday called that document "fictitious." It should be noted, however, what was shared online matched the formatting and wording of other Fulton County court records available online.
In the Fulton County Court's initial statement Monday, the office said that documents that do not bear an official case number, filing, date, or the name of the Clerk of Courts are not official filings and should not be treated as such.
In an update Tuesday, the office laid out more details about the situation and what happened with what it's now calling a "sample working document."
"A media outlet utilizing the Fulton County Press que [sic] obtained a docket sheet and shared it with other media outlets who then released the sample working document related to the former United States President, Donald Trump - reporting that an indictment had been returned by the Special Grand Jury in Fulton County Georgia," the statement said.
After the "mishap" was discovered, officials said Ché Alexander, the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts, "immediately removed the document and issued correspondence notifying the media that a fictitious document was in circulation and that no indictment had been returned by the Grand Jury."
Officials said in the statement that Alexander conducted a trial run of uploading a document in anticipation of possible issues that arise when large documents are issued. The office said Alexander used "charges that pre-exist in Odyssey" to test the system.
"Unfortunately, the sample working document led to the docketing of what appeared to be an indictment, but which was, in fact, only a fictitious docket sheet," the statement read.
"Because the media has access to documents before they are published, and while it may have appeared that something official had occurred because the document bore a case number and filing date, it did not include a signed 'true' or 'no' bill nor an official stamp with Clerk Alexander’s name, thereby making the document unofficial and a test sample only," the statement explained further.
Later in the evening, after receiving the grand jury decision, the indictment was filed and shared public.
"The Office understands the confusion that this matter caused and the sensitivity of all court filings," the statement said. "We remain committed to operating with an extreme level of efficiency, accuracy, and transparency."
After the incident happened on Monday, Trump's attorneys released a statement claiming "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, " Drew Findling and Jennifer Little, attorneys for many of the co-defendants, said. "This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception."