The first Democrat to call for Rep. Steve Scalise's resignation as GOP House majority whip is in the books, and it's Sean Patrick Maloney of New York.
The freshman New York lawmaker is the first Democratic representative to call for Scalise’s resignation from leadership outright.“It is beyond offensive that a member of House leadership would knowingly court such a hate group, and it is doubly insulting that Congressman Scalise asserts that he didn't know who David Duke was or the hate promoted by that group,” Maloney said in an emailed statement.
“Speaker Boehner should demand Congressman Scalise resign his leadership post immediately.”
Scalise said Tuesday that he regretted speaking to the group, founded by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, but emphasized that he was unaware of the group’s message. On top of racism and anti-Semitism, Duke has expressed opposition to a bill that would make discrimination against gays illegal and bashed the decision to allow gays into the military.
“Families like mine, children like mine, have no place in David Duke's racist vision for America,” Maloney added in his statement.
Indeed, after Scalise's own people admitted he spoke at David Duke's conference, they're now trying to retract the statement and are now saying Scalise was at a different event in the same hotel.
Kenny Knight is a longtime associate of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991. He’s been a key player in news that broke on Sunday that indicated Scalise addressed the white supremacist convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization when he was a Louisiana state representative in May 2002.
Knight said on Tuesday that it’s “totally incorrect” to say Scalise spoke at that convention.
“He spoke early in the day to a contingent of people, prior to the conference kicking off,” Knight said. “He was not there as a guest speaker at the conference.”
The right is now pretending the Scalise story is now over, and that it was faked or something. The problem of course is that Kenny Knight is lying.
The David Duke associate who disavowed membership in a white nationalist group linked to U.S. House Majority WhipSteve Scalise was at one time an officer in that group, according to public records. Kenny Knight told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Wednesday that he was not a member of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, but documents filed with the Louisiana secretary of state's office list him as treasurer of its predecessor, the National Organization for European American Rights, in 2000.
Further, a May 16, 2002, news release on an an archived version of EURO's former website, www.whitecivilrights.com, lists Knight as "EURO Louisiana State Representative Kenny Knight." The release says Knight was expected to address the group's May 17-18, 2002, conference.
Duke, the Louisiana neo-Nazi and former politician, created the organization to espouse "white civil rights." Knight is a longtime Duke political adviser and friend.
Knight has said he rented a meeting room for EURO in 2002 at the Landmark Hotel in Metairie as a favor for Duke, but he said he was not a member and did not line up speakers for its meeting. He said he arranged for Scalise, a Jefferson Republican then serving in the Legislature, to address their neighborhood group, the Jefferson Heights Civic Association, at the same location 2 and 1/2 hours before the EURO conference.
So not only was Knight lying about not being at David Duke's conference, he lied about not being involved in setting it up.
Meanwhile, look forward to more Benghazi, Grubergate, and IRS hearings in 2015, I'm sure.