Fulton County clerk raises more questions with excuse for mysterious document leaked hours before grand jury vote

The Fulton County clerk of courts raised more questions on Tuesday with a statement explaining the mysterious leaked document showing the charges on which President Donald Trump was indicted.

What is the background?

On Monday, Reuters obtained a document from the Fulton County Court purportedly showing the charges on which Trump had been indicted. The problem, however, was that the document was generated hours before a grand jury officially voted to indict Trump.

The document was later removed, and the Fulton County Court called it "fictitious." Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis later refused to address the document.

What is the clerk saying?

The document was not fake, imaginary, or fabricated (the definition of "fictitious"). Rather, it was generated by accident, according to Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts Ché Alexander.

Alexander's office claimed in a statement that ahead of the anticipated indictment, the clerk wanted to "test the system" and that the "sample working document" generated from her test was docketed by accident.

The statement said:

In anticipation of issues that arise with entering a potentially large indictment, Alexander used charges that pre-exist in Odyssey to test the system and conduct a trial run. 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.

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 raises more questions than it answers.

Why did the "sample" document only include Trump's name and charges, considering that 18 others were indicted with the former president? How were the charges listed on the sample document the same ones Trump was later indicted on? Why use Trump's real name at all? Why did the clerk need practice using a system necessary for carrying out the core duties of her job?

The incident is significant insofar as Trump's defense will use it to argue he was not treated fairly and that improprieties existed throughout the grand jury process.

"This was not a simple administrative mistake," Trump attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said on Monday about the document.

"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," they added. "This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception."

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