Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 3-ranking House Republican, is reaching out to GOP House members as fallout intensifies over his 2002 speech to a white supremacist group — a revelation that has put his leadership position in jeopardy days before Republicans take over both chambers of Congress.
Scalise is calling members to gauge the level of support he has from his party, according to a senior House Republican source.
The firestorm over allegations that Scalise addressed a group founded by former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke is turning into a major distraction for House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team. So far Boehner has not weighed in on the matter.
Scalise defended his speech to the New Orleans Times-Picayune in an interview Monday, reiterating what his spokeswoman said earlier in the day — that he didn’t know what group he was speaking to.
“I didn’t know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group. For anyone to suggest that I was involved with a group like that is insulting and ludicrous,” he said.
Critics of Scalise have been bipartisan, but so have his defenders. He’s received strong support from Louisiana politicians, with African American Rep. Cedric Richmond — the state’s only Democratic House member — defending him from charges of racism.
“I don’t think Steve Scalise has a racist bone in his body,” Richmond, who is African American, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “Steve and I have worked on issues that benefit poor people, black people, white people, Jewish people. I know his character.”
But national Democrats have pounced on the episode.
Democratic National Committee Communications Director Mo Elleithee said in an emailed statement Tuesday that Scalise’s explanation couldn’t pass the “smell test.”
“These questions are just the tip of the iceberg — Rep. Scalise and all of Republican leadership need to start giving some real answers soon,” Elleithee said.
And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued a scathing statement charging Scalise “chose to cheerlead for a group of KKK members and neo-Nazis at a white supremacist rally” and slamming House leadership for their silence on the development.
“While David Duke defends Scalise, Speaker Boehner and Leader McCarthy are refusing to condemn Scalise’s choice of allies,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee National Press Secretary Josh Schwerin.
Schwerin said the incident made it “clear their leadership has a history of embracing anti-Semitic, racist hate groups.”
According to an agenda for the event and notes attendees posted afterward, Scalise appeared at the National/International EURO Workshop on Civil Rights, a white nationalist organization founded by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
“When you look at the kind of things they stand for, I detest these kinds of views. As a Catholic, I think some of the things they profess target people like me. At lot of their views run contradictory to the way I run my life,” Scalise added.
Scalise also equated his appearance before the white supremacist forum with one before the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan group known for helping to register new voters.
“I spoke to the League of Women Voters, a pretty liberal group. … I still went and spoke to them. I spoke to any group that called, and there were a lot of groups calling,” he said.
Scalise also suggested the appearance was in part due to staffing issues.
“I had one person that was working for me. When someone called and asked me to speak, I would go. I was, in no way, affiliated with that group or the other groups I was talking to.”
CNN has learned that the staffer at the time was Cameron Henry, who currently holds Scalise’s former state House seat. Henry rushed CNN off the phone Monday night and declined to discuss the situation, but did not deny his work for the congressman.
Henry’s brother, Charles Henry, is Scalise’s current chief of staff. Neither responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.
The controversy comes just days before Republicans take full control of Congress with House Majority Whip Scalise poised to play a key role in shepherding through conservatives’ legislative priorities.
In a statement, Scalise communications director Moira Smith said the congressman has no ties to the “abhorrent group in question.”
A Scalise source said the 2002 speech came as Scalise was barnstorming his district to discuss a ballot initiative he opposed. The appearance was first reported on Sunday on CenLamar.com, a Louisiana politics blog run by Lamar White Jr.
“Throughout his career in public service, Mr. 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,” Smith said. “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,” she said. “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.”
Politicians in Scalise’s home state of Louisiana rallied to his defense Monday, saying they don’t believe he agrees with the white supremacist group’s ideology.
“I know Congressman Scalise to be a good man who is fair-minded and kindhearted. I’m confident he absolutely rejects racism in all its forms,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a statement.
But Scalise’s alleged appearance at the event drew a harsh rebuke from Erick Erickson, the conservative RedState.com blogger and former Louisiana resident who asked of the congressman: “How do you not know? How do you not investigate?”
“How the hell does somebody show up at a David Duke organized event in 2002 and claim ignorance?” Erickson wrote in a post Monday.
He said Trent Lott — the former Senate majority leader who was driven from his post after praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign — lost his gig “for something less than this” in 2001.
And he pointed to Republicans who hit Mississippi Senate candidate Chris McDaniel in 2014 for attending events hosted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and for making plans to attend a rally where he was billed along with a white nationalist.
And indeed, a Roll Call report from 1999 suggests Scalise knew Duke well, and was critical of his beliefs. At that time, both were considered potential contenders in a House special election, and Scalise panned him in comments to the paper.
“The novelty of David Duke has worn off,” Scalise said. “The voters in this district are smart enough to realize that they need to get behind someone who not only believes in the issues they care about, but also can get elected. Duke has proven that he can’t get elected, and that’s the first and most important thing.”