Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling attends the fourth of eight planned public hearings of the U.S. House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 21, 2022. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

Who is Gabriel Sterling and why is he important to the Jan. 6 hearings?

Politics

Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state, is expected to testify June 21 at the fourth Jan. 6 committee hearing on June 21.

Sterling is a top voting official in Georgia, and helped manage the 2020 presidential election and recount in Georgia, which Donald Trump narrowly lost to Joe Biden. As a result, Trump and his allies honed in on the state as an example of their false and unfounded claims of voter fraud.

WATCH: Jan. 6 committee examines how Trump pressured Pence to overturn the 2020 election

Georgia both audited the vote tally and performed a recount of the votes because Biden's lead was so razor thin. Sterling consistently said his office was taking claims of election law violations seriously, but ultimately the state found no widespread fraud.

Trump kept pushing the false claims of fraud, however, worrying state officials that people would become violent in response. In early December 2020, Sterling held an emotional press conference where he admonished Trump's efforts to overturn the election and pleaded with him to stop claiming fraud.

"It's all gone too far. All of it," a visibly angry Sterling said.

"Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence," Sterling said, addressing Trump. "Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed," he said.

Sterling suggested that Trump's advisers were potentially misleading him or the public.

"The people around the president know better," he said.

The Jan. 6 committee has tried to substantiate that idea by showing clips of Trump advisors admitting they knew there was no fraud.

After a recording was made public of Trump calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to "find" thousands of more votes because, in his view, he won the state, Sterling again called out Trump's falsehoods.

"This is all easily, provably false. Yet the president persists, and, by doing so, undermines Georgians' faith in the election system," he said.

Sterling is expected to testify alongside Raffensperger.

Last week, Sterling testified before a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, about Trump's phone call to the secretary of state.

For more on the key players in the Jan. 6 committee hearings, click here.

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Who is Gabriel Sterling and why is he important to the Jan. 6 hearings? first appeared on the PBS News website.

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