加布里埃尔·斯特林，共和党人，乔治亚州高级选举官员曾多次斥责周日，前总统唐纳德·特朗普在2020年特朗普输给乔·拜登后声称存在欺诈行为随着特朗普面临潜在的起诉在格鲁吉亚，他“最大的担忧”仍然是潜在的暴力风险，因为对投票完整性的煽动性攻击。
斯特林出现在“本周”的时候富尔顿县地方检察官法妮·威利斯在调查推翻特朗普在2020年大选中在佐治亚州失利的努力后，预计本周将向大陪审团提交一个案件。
特朗普否认所有不当行为。
斯特林被“本周”联合主播乔纳森·卡尔问及他是否担心特朗普的言论，包括一个最近攻击威利斯的竞选广告，可能会导致暴力“再次”
“你永远不知道会发生什么。多年来我最大的担忧...斯特林说:“有些人会在某些时候被这些语言所驱使，做出一些愚蠢的事情。
“这不会是一件有组织的事情。这不会是一群阴谋家在一起，”他说。“这将是一个可能精神不稳定的人，他将通过这个过程变得激进。”
斯特林在重复一个警告他在2020年12月首次制造了，同时在佐治亚州国务卿布拉德·拉芬斯佩格办公室担任投票系统实施经理。
“总统先生，看起来你很可能失去了佐治亚州，”他当时对特朗普说，这是他举行的众多新闻发布会之一，旨在驳斥关于2020年大选的错误说法。“你有权通过法院。你没有能力做的是——你需要站出来说——停止鼓励人们做出潜在的暴力行为。有人会受伤的。有人要中枪了。有人会被杀的。”
斯特林现在是拉芬斯珀格办公室的首席运营官，他在2020年总统大选后首次崭露头角，因为他和同样是共和党人的拉芬斯珀格驳斥了特朗普及其盟友在该州结果中提出的选民欺诈的虚假指控。
2021年1月，在特朗普的失败被国会认证前不久，特朗普在一次臭名昭著的电话中敦促拉芬斯珀格“找到”足够的选票，让他赢得佐治亚州。
在“本周”节目中，卡尔问斯特林，他是否认为特朗普知道他输掉了选举，正如联邦检察官在法庭上所说的那样。特朗普坚称他真诚地相信这一点。
斯特林指出，独立审计未能发现佐治亚州的欺诈行为，他援引统计数据强调，特朗普在新冠肺炎疫情公开蔑视邮件投票似乎让他失去了关键的选票。
在这张2022年6月21日的资料照片中，佐治亚州国务卿首席运营官加布里埃尔·斯特林(Gabriel Sterling)在华盛顿特区坎农豪斯办公大楼1月6日调查的第四次听证会上作证
凯文·迪奇/盖蒂图片社
“我们已经反复说过了。我们数了三次选票。他失去了这个州，”斯特林说。”他继续说他没有失去它。这只会制造很多紧张和混乱。完全没必要。我的意思是，这个国家确实存在问题。”
从短期来看，斯特林表示，特朗普的法律问题似乎已经为他带来了政治利益，因为他正在寻求2024年共和党总统候选人提名。
“这给他的竞选注入了氧气，”斯特林说。“这筹集了大量的资金，而且是大量的资金...被用来支付他的律师费，而不是用于实际的竞选活动。”
“他正在让自己成为一名烈士，许多美国人都支持他，因为他们觉得这些事情有点过分，”斯特林补充道。
然而，从长远来看，斯特林预测，特朗普专注于他对上次选举的错误说法不会帮助他赢得明年所需的选民。“任何谈论2020年大选的人都会输掉大选。你这样做不会赢得任何选民，”斯特林说。
斯特林是一名前市议员，自称是“政治迷”，他告诉卡尔，他一直并将继续密切关注特朗普的三项起诉，第四项起诉可能会在富尔顿县出现。(特朗普对两人都不认罪，声称受到了迫害。)
但斯特林也表示，他和其他人正在“对整个事情感到厌倦”
“很难相信我们已经取得了今天的成就。...但是，你知道，这个系统必须以某种方式运作。
他拒绝透露他是否被传唤到大陪审团面前作证，大陪审团将审理富尔顿县地方检察官的案件，但他承认之前与调查人员交谈过。“如果我被召唤，当我被召唤时，我会去做我以前做的事情。我会说实话，诚实地回答，”他说。“在这种情况下，我们只能这样做。”
卡尔追问斯特林，为什么他认为共和党的许多人都接受了特朗普关于选民欺诈的虚假说法。
“是部落。如果我的政党相信这一点，那么我也会相信，”斯特林说。“如果你不相信它，那么你犯了叛教，你没有遵守规则。”
Ahead of potential Trump indictment, Ga. election official worries again about inflammatory rhetoric
Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and a top Georgia elections officialwho has repeatedly rebukedformer President Donald Trump's claims of fraud after Trump lost the state to Joe Biden in 2020, said Sundayas a potential indictment looms against Trumpin Georgia that his "biggest concern" remains the potential risk of violence as a result of incendiary attacks on voting integrity.
Sterling's appearance on "This Week" comes asFulton County District Attorney Fani Willisis expected this week to present a case to a grand jury after investigating efforts to overturn Trump's loss in Georgia in the 2020 election.
Trump denies all wrongdoing.
Sterling was asked by "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl if he worried Trump's rhetoric, including arecent campaign ad attacking Willis, could lead to violence "once again."
"You never know what's going to happen. My biggest concern for years now ... is somebody will be motivated by some of those kinds of language at some point and do something stupid," Sterling said.
"It's not going to be an organized thing. It's not going to be a bunch of conspirators together," he said. "It's going to be one probably mentally unstable individual who's going to be radicalized through this process."
Sterling was echoing a warninghe first made in December 2020, while serving as the voting system implementation manager in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office.
"Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia," he told Trump then, during one of many press conferences he held debunking false claims about the 2020 election. "You have the right to go through the courts. What you don't have the ability to do -- and you need to step up and say this -- is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed."
Sterling, now the chief operating officer in Raffensperger's office, first came to prominence in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as he and Raffensperger, also a Republican, pushed back on false claims of voter fraud in the state's results pushed by Trump and his allies.
In January 2021, shortly before Trump's defeat was certified by Congress, Trump urged Raffensperger in an infamous phone call to "find" just enough votes for him to win Georgia.
On "This Week," Karl asked Sterling whether he thinks Trump knew he lost the election, as federal prosecutors have alleged in court. Trump insists he sincerely believes that.
Sterling pointed out that independent audits failed to find fraud in Georgia, and he cited statistics that underscored how Trump's public disdain for mail voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have cost him crucial votes.
"We've been saying this over and over again. We counted the ballots three times. He lost this state," Sterling said. "And he continued to say he didn't lose it. And it's just creating a lot of tension and a lot of chaos. It's completely unnecessary. I mean, there's real issues in this country."
In the short term, Sterling said Trump's legal issues seem to have resulted in political gain for him as he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
"This has been giving oxygen to his campaign," Sterling said. "This is raising tons of money, and a lot of that money ... is being used to pay for his lawyers and not for actual campaign[ing]."
"He's making himself a martyr, and a lot of the American people are going behind him because they feel like some of these things are a little bit of a stretch," Sterling added.
Longer term, however, Sterling predicted that Trump's focus on his false claims about the last election won't help him win over the voters he needs next year. "Anybody talking about 2020 election is going to lose the general election. You're not gaining any voters by doing that," Sterling said.
A former city councilman and a self-described "political junkie," Sterling told Karl that he has been and will continue to closely follow Trump's three indictments, with a fourth potentially looming in Fulton County. (Trump has pleaded not guilty to each, claiming persecution.)
But Sterling also said he and others are getting "fatigued over the entire thing."
"It's hard to believe we've gotten where we've gotten. ... But, you know, the system has to work its way through, one way or the other," he said.
He declined to say whether or not he has been called to testify before the grand jury who will hear the Fulton County district attorney's case but acknowledged previously speaking with investigators. "If I am called, when I am called, I will go and do what I did before. I will tell the truth, answer honestly," he said. "That's all we can do in this situation."
Karl pressed Sterling about why he thinks many in the Republican Party's base have embraced Trump's false claims of voter fraud.
"It's tribal. If my party believes this, then therefore, I will believe it," Sterling said. "And if you don't believe it, then you're committing apostasy and you're not following the rules."
