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Rick Jackson, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful in Georgia, is facing heat from critics calling him a "fraud" and claiming he lied during a debate earlier this week when the candidate struggled to answer whether he has illegal aliens working for him.

"I don't know," Jackson replied when his fellow Republican frontrunner in the race, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, asked him point-blank whether he has any illegal aliens working for him.

Jackson explained he was not directly involved in the hiring process in question, but he also said on the debate stage that anyone making hires for him "obey[ed] the laws," including verifying employment eligibility using the appropriate federal "verification" measures despite saying the opposite during a sworn deposition.

After his contradictory remarks on the debate stage Monday night, Jackson's critics leaped at the opportunity to call him out, pointing to his sworn remarks from a worker's compensation case, during which Jackson…