Hours prior to the public announcement of the indictment of the Orange Stain (and a bunch of other co-conspirators) by the State of Georgia, a document appeared briefly on the Superior Court docket. (Reuters picked it up before it was removed.) A while later, the Clerk of Court’s office put out a statement saying "The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts has 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,"
A fictitious document? Fictitous?
I’m seeing two possibilities here:
1. Whoever wrote this statement meant to say the document was erroneous, incomplete, or unauthorized, but instead said “fictitious” even though the document was real.
2. The document really was fictitious (as in fake).
If #1 happened, then someone in the Fulton County Cleark of Court’s office who wrote that statement reeeeeaaally screwed up big time. The absolute last thing needed regarding this indictment is fuel for the rabid right wingers to use to attempt to delegitimize the investigation and/or indictment. I haven’t watched Faux News (it hurts my brain) but I can already hear them. “See?! They just admitted the whole thing was fictitious this afternoon, and now they’re trying to go after Trump with this! Witch huuuuuunnnt!!!” Saying that the document was fictitious and then hours later releasing the same (and very real) information is a really bad look. If that’s what happened, I’d bet that Fani Willis was not happy.
If #2 happened, and a fake document was actually posted to the Fulton County Clerk of Superior Court docket, then how the @#$% did it get there? Is there an IT security problem of some kind? Were they hacked? Was it an inside job? If the document really was fake and it ended up being posted on the docket, that’s a major problem.
Whether #1 or #2 turns out to be the case, neither is excusable. While it may not impact the indictment or trials, it seems like somebody down in Georgia’s got some ‘splainin to do.