Attorneys for Donald Trump blasted the Fulton County District Attorney's Office on Monday after the purported release of a "proposed indictment" of the former president as county officials dispute the authenticity of 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. This was not a simple administrative mistake," a statement from Trump attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little read.
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A list of criminal charges in Georgia against Trump briefly appeared Monday around noon on a Fulton County, Georgia, website, though prosecutors immediately released a statement saying Trump had not been indicted in their long-running investigation into alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.
Reuters, which later published a copy of the document, said it was taken down from the county website quickly. A spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the report of charges being filed was "inaccurate" earlier on Monday but did not elaborate further.
Nicholas F. Cotten, chief public relations officer for the Fulton County Clerk of the Superior and Magistrate Courts, released a statement saying the county had 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."
"While there have been no documents filed today regarding such, all members of the media should be reminded that documents that do not bear an official case number, filing date, and the name of The Clerk of Courts, in concert, are not considered official filings and should not be treated as such," the statement continued.
Trump's lawyers released their statement roughly 30 minutes after Cotten's statement.
"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 attorneys added. "This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception."
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The grand jury convening this week over Willis's investigation met on Monday and remained at the courthouse on Monday until after 5 p.m., even as clerks and other court staff left the building, according to the New York Times.
Notably, some witnesses who planned to testify before the grand jury on Tuesday adjusted their schedules and actually testified on Monday following the Reuters reporting, including former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan. Gabriel Sterling, a top election official in Georgia, was also seen leaving the courthouse around 6 p.m. after arriving Monday morning for grand jury testimony.