Former President Donald Trump getting gang-tackled by riot-gear-clad New York City police officers. 

The highly detailed, sensational images have inundated Twitter and other platforms in recent days, amid news that Trump faces possible criminal charges.

But neither visual is remotely real. 

The images — and scores of variations littering social media — were produced using increasingly sophisticated and widely accessible image generators powered by artificial intelligence.

In one widely-circulating Twitter thread, Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism collective, used the latest version of the tool to conjure up scores of dramatic images of Trump’s fictional arrest.

Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday said Donald Trump misled people to expect he would be arrested this week and prompted fellow Republicans in Congress to interfere with a probe under way into his hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

On Saturday, the former president said he would be arrested on Tuesday in the probe by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

On Monday, three Republican committee chairmen in the U.S. House of Representatives went on the offensive against District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, accusing him of abusing prosecutorial authority and seeking communications, documents and testimony from him.

As of Wednesday, a grand jury hearing evidence in the Stormy Daniels case had yet to issue an indictment, and on Thursday Bragg's office sent the committee chairmen a letter seen by Reuters.

The letter said the chairmen's accusations "only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested the next day and his lawyers reportedly urged you to intervene."

It confirmed that Bragg's office was "investigating allegations that Donald Trump engaged in violations of New York State penal law."

If indicted, Trump would be the first U.S. president to face criminal charges.