House Republican Whip Steve Scalise says he doesn’t remember a 2002 appearance he made at a meeting of white supremacists.
He tells Nola.com/The Times-Picayune, “I detest any kind of hate group.”
Scalise was in the Louisiana Legislature when he appeared at a convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization.
Now he is the third-highest ranking House Republican in Washington.
Scalise says he was asked by several groups to speak about his opposition to a tax plan he opposed at that time.
The group was founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who's also a former Louisiana lawmaker. Scalise says Duke was never at a group where he was a speaker.
He says that had he known at the time what the group was about — he would not have gone to the meeting.
A liberal Louisiana blogger, Lamar White, first reported the appearance.
