From Fox 5 Atlanta:
Gabriel Sterling, the Voting Systems Manager for the Georgia Secretary of State's office, came out swinging during a press conference Tuesday afternoon after weeks of harassment, threats, and division.
"It has all gone too far," Sterling said. "This has to stop!”
Sterling started the press conference calling out President Donald Trump and Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who he said he still fully supports, for not coming out against the on-going threats being made on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his wife, and numerous elections officials and contractors.
"Be the bigger man here and step in and tell your supporters to stop," Sterling, a life-long conservative, directly challenged the president.
He said the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was a 20-something Gwinnett County contractor with Dominion, the company entrusted with Georgia’s new voting system, had a noose out in front of his home with his name on it after a video was posted online claiming to show him “manipulate data.”
“He just took a job,” an emotional Sterling said adding he chose to have a high-profile job, but the young man who was threatened was just doing his job. “People started accusing him of treason."
Sterling asserted the contractor did nothing wrong and was transferring a report on batches so that he could read it.
“Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” Sterling said, visibly angry. “This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some.”
He also outlined how Raffensperger’s wife has been receiving "sexualized threats" on her personal phone.
"…Death threats, physical threats, intimidation is too much. It's not right. They've lost the moral high ground," Sterling said.
This is a Sterling rebuke. Gabriel Sterling lives up to his name. He put the safety and well-being of a young man doing his job ahead of the self-indulgent behavior of President Trump and Senators Loeffler and Perdue as well as his own party.
If President Kennedy was still among us he would characterize Sterling as a profile in courage. After all, slavish worship of President Trump and his conspiracy theories has become a prerequisite for relevance within the GOP. Sterling is standing athwart and yelling, "Stop!!!"
Sadly there is a good chance that Sterling will remain the exception to the rule and be the subject of intimidation and violent threats.
Should this come to pass I hope Sterling will continue to shine on.
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