Intimidation Over Trump's Fraud Claims 'Has To Stop': Sterling

ATLANTA, GA — In an angry rebuke of President Donald Trump, one of Georgia’s top elections officials warned that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud would get someone “shot” or “killed.”

“When the president called (Georgia Secretary of State) Brad Raffensperger — who is a fine, upstanding, lifelong Republican — an ‘enemy of the people,’ that helped open the floodgates for this sort of crap,” Sterling said in a Tuesday night news conference at the Georgia Capitol.

“There are some nutballs out there who are going to take this and say, ‘The president told me to do this,’” Sterling continued, his voice tense. “You have to be responsible in your statements. This shouldn’t be too much to ask.”

Sterling cited intimidation directed at those involved with Georgia’s elections, including sexualized harassing phone calls to Raffensperger’s wife. “The straw that broke the camel’s back,” Sterling said, was a death threat to a Gwinnett County technician with Dominion Voting Systems, egged on by social media posts claiming that the technician was altering vote totals.

“This has to stop,” Sterling said to Trump and the two Republican senatorial candidates, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. “We need you to step up. If you take a position of leadership, show some.”

Although a Trump campaign spokesperson said he “fully” condemned violence “if that has happened,” Trump himself doubled down Tuesday night on fraud claims, tweeting “Rigged Election” along with a clip of Sterling.

Gwinnett County’s Solicitor General Brian Whiteside responded Wednesday afternoon with a statement that his office would “prosecute all individuals who threaten or assault election workers, election officials, elected officials, volunteers, and contractors.” Offenses carry a fine up to $1,000 and a maximum of one year in jail.

Raffensperger himself piled on Wednesday, saying at a news conference that Sterling had his “full support.”

Noting that neither Georgia investigators nor U.S. Attorney General William Barr had found any widespread voter fraud, Raffensperger criticized Trump for continuing to stir controversy.

“Even after this office requested that President Trump try to quell the violent rhetoric being borne out of his continuing claims of winning the states where he obviously lost, he tweeted out: 'Expose the massive voter fraud in Georgia,’” Raffensperger said.

“This is exactly the kind of language that is at the base of a growing threat environment for election workers who are simply doing their jobs,” Raffensperger added. “We will continue to do our jobs, follow the law and follow the process.”

Rigged Election. Show signatures and envelopes. Expose the massive voter fraud in Georgia. What is Secretary of State and @BrianKempGA afraid of. They know what we’ll find!!! https://t.co/Km7tRm2s1A
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2020