A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
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No, Georgia officials didn’t err in releasing Trump indictment with grand jurors’ names
CLAIM: Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, forgot to redact the names of the grand jurors who indicted former President Donald Trump this week in relation to his actions following the 2020 election.
THE FACTS: It is standard that indictments in Georgia include the names of the grand jurors, in part because it provides defendants the opportunity to challenge the composition of the grand jury, legal experts told the AP. But after a grand jury indicted Trump as well as 18 others on Monday for their alleged efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss in the state, some quickly spread a claim that officials erred in releasing the indictment by including the jurors’ names. “First they ‘leak’ the indictment before the jury even voted, then they forget to redact juror names,” reads one popular post on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, seemingly referencing the fact that the court accidentally posted a list of criminal charges against Trump before he was actually indicted. But experts say including the jurors’ names, unredacted, is standard in Georgia. “In every felony case that I have handled in Georgia both as a former prosecutor and now defense lawyer, the names of the grand jurors have appeared on the Indictment,” Gabe Banks, a former Fulton County deputy district attorney, said in an email. Banks noted that indictments will usually show some names that are struck through, indicating jurors who were not present or didn’t vote. Adam Hames, a former Georgia assistant attorney general, likewise said that it’s “common practice to list the names of the grand jurors on the indictment.” Even though grand jury proceedings are generally secret, he said, including the grand jurors’ names allows the defense to present a challenge if necessary. In fact, the Georgia Supreme Court has consistently held that an indictment without the names of grand jurors is considered “defective,” said Elizabeth Taxel, an assistant clinical professor of law at the University of Georgia. Though there isn’t a Georgia statute that explicitly states that the names of the grand jurors must be written in the indictment, “that requirement is both inferred from the statutes governing the grand jury process and is established through hundred years of case law,” Taxel said in an email. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday that it, along with other agencies, is investigating threats targeting members of the jury.