House Majority Whip Steve Scalise’s office said Monday he likely spoke at a white supremacist conference in 2002, but said the Louisiana Republican has never been affiliated with the “abhorrent group in question.”
The Louisiana political blog CenLamar reported Sunday that Stormfront, a white nationalist and neo-Nazi Internet forum, recently reported that Scalise, then a Louisiana state representative, likely spoke and was a “honored guest” at the “2002 International White Supremacist Convention” in Metairie, La.
The event was sponsored by the the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, or EURO, a group led by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, former Louisiana state representative and former Republican candidate for Louisiana governor. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated EURO a “hate group.”
The Washington Post has reported that Scalise has acknowledged he probably spoke at the event but that he didn’t realize the group supports white supremacy.
Scalise spokeswoman Moira Smith told the Washington Examiner the following:
“Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints. In every case, he was building support for his policies, not the other way around. In 2002, he made himself available to anyone who wanted to hear his proposal to eliminate slush funds that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars as well as his opposition to a proposed tax increase on middle-class families. He has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question. The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband, and a devoted Catholic.”
