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In one of the most striking reprimands to the president of the United States, Donald Trump, since he launched his unfounded attacks on the American electoral process, a senior election official from Georgia lashed out at the president on Tuesday for failing to condemn threats of violence against women. people who supervise the voting. system in your state.
“It has to stop,” Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and Georgia voting system implementation manager, said at an afternoon news conference at the State Capitol, his voice shaking with excitement. “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language.”
He added: “These are elections. This is the backbone of democracy, and everyone who hasn’t said a damn word is complicit in this. It’s too much.”
Sterling’s outburst of anger and frustration came amid a sustained attack on the Georgia electoral process by Trump as he seeks to reverse his loss to his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. Sterling, who previously said he had received threats himself, said threats had also been made against the wife of his superior, Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state.
“Mr. President, it looks like you probably lost the state of Georgia,” Sterling said. He added that the president needed to “step up” and say, “Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt, someone is going to be shot, someone is going to die. And it’s not okay. “
Sterling also called on the state’s two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, to stop supporting Trump’s fraud allegations and to condemn rhetoric that he claimed was getting dangerously out of control. The two senators, both loyal to Trump, called for Raffensperger’s resignation.
Lawsuits
As Trump launches false accusations of fraud in Georgia, a series of lawsuits filed by conservatives in state and federal courts seek to decertify the results. The second of the two recount requested by the Trump campaign is expected to end on Wednesday. And the Georgian Republican Party has descended into a state of virtual civil war as some of its most powerful players outwit and smear their rivals for advantage or at least survival.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to lash out at Governor Brian Kemp and Raffensperger, both staunch Republicans and Trump supporters, for the fact that he lost Georgia, saying they haven’t sufficiently eradicated the fraud.
As of Tuesday morning, Trump made the latest in a series of unsubstantiated claims about the Georgia election, writing on Twitter that the state had been “scammed” and urging Kemp to “cancel” the election.
Some of Trump’s supporters have taken to the streets and to the Capitol Building in downtown Atlanta, where conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars recently joined them. In other cases, Trump supporters have harassed or threatened Sterling, Raffensperger and others.
In a statement Tuesday night, Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign is focused on ensuring that all legal votes and not all illegal votes are counted. No one should participate in threats or violence, and if that has happened, we fully condemn it. “
In the midst of all this, Sterling, a detail-oriented former city councilman from the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, has assumed a prominent role in the state as he delivered his stories. Along with Raffensperger, he has often been the keynote speaker at numerous press conferences where he has explained the complexities of Georgia’s election and counting systems and argued that the results, which currently show Biden winning by around 12,700 votes , they are truthful.
Ari Schaffer, press secretary in the secretary of state’s office, did not respond directly when asked Tuesday if Raffensperger had given Sterling his blessing to speak out so forcefully against the president. But he noted that Undersecretary of State Jordan Fuchs was close to Sterling when he made his remarks.
“Gabriel has my support,” Fuchs said independently in a text message.
Late Tuesday, representatives for Loeffler and Perdue said they condemned violence of any kind, but also said they would not apologize for seeking accountability and precision in state elections.
‘Sexualized threats’
At the second of two news conferences called by the secretary of state’s office Tuesday, Sterling, speaking loudly, emotionally and deliberately, said that people had trespassed on Raffensperger’s personal property. He said that Mr. Raffensperger’s wife “is receiving sexualized threats through her cell phone.” He mentioned that he had police protection outside of his own home, a topic he had also addressed in a Nov. 21 tweet.
So this is fun. . . multiple hacking attempts on my emails, police protection at my home, threats, ”wrote Mr. Sterling then. “But everything is fine … following the law, following the process … doing our job.”
On Tuesday, Sterling also referenced reports that Joe diGenova, a Trump campaign attorney, had said that Chris Krebs, a former federal cybersecurity official who said the elections were fair, should be shot. (DiGenova later said her comments had been “made in jest”).
But Sterling said the “last straw” had involved a threat against a 20-year-old contractor for a voting systems company in Gwinnett County. He said the young worker had been attacked by someone who hung a noose and stated that the worker should be “hanged for treason” simply for doing a routine element of his job. Mr. Sterling did not provide further details.
“I can’t begin to explain the level of anger that I have right now over this,” he said. “And all Americans, all Georgians, Republicans and Democrats alike, should have the same level of anger.”
Details of the rope incident that Sterling cited could not be corroborated Tuesday. – New York Times
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