As we await what will likely be yet another indictment of Donald Trump, this time in Georgia, the conservative conspiracy theory for why this new indictment is a ‘deep state’ attack on Trump is already coalescing. As conspiracy theories go, though, this one's pretty damn disappointing.
On Monday morning, a Reuters journalist discovered that an apparent indictment of Trump was posted by the Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney's office but then "quickly taken down." The document appeared to show 13 felony charges against Trump—and was, even if legitimate, not a true indictment, because it hadn't been approved by a grand jury. It might have been a list of the proposed charges the district attorney is now presenting to the grand jury, and so was seized upon by reporters who've been using it to glean possible details on the charges Trump might be facing.
It didn't help that the Fulton County clerk claimed the document to be "fictitious," seemingly denying that any such document was ever uploaded, when they could have left the explanation that without "an official case number, filing date, and the name of the The Clerk of Courts" isn't an official filing and "should not be treated as such." But wherever the screw-up was, the Trump brigades seized on it to announce that it proved that the fix was in, because reasons.
I believe Trump himself has made several proposals to bring back "state sponsored lynching," so I don't know what they're complaining about. More notably, the world's worst actual law professor weighed in with a typically pro-Trump take on things.
I don't know how hard it is to explain, really. Do we think indictments are drafted by grand juries themselves? Do we think they are born from a peach? The district attorney's office would have had the proposed indictment and list of counts written up before ever saying word one to the grand jury; the purpose of convening the grand jury is to present evidence and have them vote on each charge.
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So if this was the list of charges being presented to the grand jury, it would be a useful leak in that it might later show us what charges, if any, the grand jury shot down. But that's all it is.
Or, if you're Trump and his lawyers and his hangers-on, you can freak the hell out and claim that this shows all the world is biased against you. Trump's attorneys took their sweet time, but eventually came out with a statement goosing the paranoia by declaring that "this was not a simple administrative mistake" and that it "is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional issues which have plagued this case from its very inception."
It's amazing how "filthy rich man encounters problems in America's court system" becomes an earth-shaking story, strictly because of the "filthy rich" part. Trump has had the gentlest encounters with our courts that anyone could possibly have—Jack Smith practically handed over both his indictments with a mint on a pillow, compared to how most criminal defendants are first delivered to their trials—and Trump still considers it an injustice. And he tried to overthrow the entire damn government.
Is publishing an indictment that may or may not show what the Fulton County DA's office is looking to charge Trump with a blunder? Oh, God yes. It's an act of incompetence that's likely going to get someone, somewhere fired. It compromised the secrecy of the case, and that's much worse for the prosecution than it is for Trump—which might be why the grand jury is now working late hours, apparently trying to hear from every remaining witness in the case in one night.
But it ain't a conspiracy against Trump. Not everything is a conspiracy. Not everything is space lasers, or agents of the deep state. When you commit as many crimes as Trump does, you're going to run across the crappy edges of our state and federal courts sooner rather than later.
At the moment, Trump's Twitter Trolls—or should that be Xwitter Xrolls, with the rebranding—are shouting for a "mistrial." It's not going to happen. And it's honestly a bit weird, because given how many of Trump's allies have their own up-close experiences with state and federal courthouses, you would think all of them would be well acquainted with screw-ups like this. Look, one of Trump's old lawyers scheduled a posh press conference in the driveway of a landscaping center—and you're going to gripe about somebody else's screw-ups?
