The new Republican-controlled Congress risks becoming engulfed in a growing race scandal after it emerged that House majority whip Steve Scalise spoke at a white supremacist conference backed by former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke.

In his first public comments since the allegations emerged in a blog on Sunday, Scalise appeared to acknowledge on Monday night that he probably attended the 2002 event outside New Orleans, though he insisted he had no specific memory of it and sought to distance himself from the views of those present.

“I didn’t know who all of these groups were and I detest any kind of hate group,” the Louisiana congressman told the Times-Picayune newspaper. “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,” he added.

Any lingering doubt over Scalise’s links to the conference was further diminished however by Duke, who separately told a Washington Post reporter that the then Louisiana state politician was invited as a speaker by two of his close associates, Howie Farrell and Kenny Knight.

Scalise’s spokeswoman, Moira Bagley, told the Guardian: “We have no reason to believe he was not there. It is 99% likely that he was there, but we have no direct records so cannot confirm for definite.”

The group that organised the conference, called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (Euro), is ostensibly aimed at promoting the “civil rights” of white Americans but anti-racism campaigners claim it is primarily a vehicle to promote the far-right writings of Duke, a former KKK grand wizard.

The politically toxic link emerges just days before the new Congress is sworn in and was further compounded for Republicans on Monday night by separate news that New York congressman Michael Grimm has decided to resign in the wake of pleading guilty to tax fraud.



Support for Scalise, the third highest-ranking House Republican and one of the most senior conservatives in Washington, was noticeably absent on Monday despite his attempt to distance himself from Duke.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindall, one of the few non-white figures in the party, backed Scalise in a statement that said he was a “good man who is fair-minded and kind-hearted”, but few of the party’s senior leaders in Washington were yet willing to defend him.

Neither the House speaker, John Boehner, the majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, nor the Republican National Convention responded to requests for comment from the Guardian, and the revelations may put intense pressure on Scalise, who won a fiercely-fought whip election in June as a Tea Party-backed candidate but is often at odds with Republican leadership.

Some experienced figures on the Hill believe he will survive the revelations, however, arguing that an isolated incident six years before joining Congress will not stick without a pattern of similar behaviour.

“This looks to me like an incident where a politician was at the wrong place at the wrong time by accident,” Tom Cole, the party’s deputy majority whip, told the Guardian.



“As a Native American I am pretty sensitive to charges of racism and white supremacy,” the Oklahoma congressman added. “I have never seen any evidence that Steve holds such views. Quite the contrary ... I do not believe he has a racist bone in his body.”

Scalise’s best hope of political salvation seems to lie in his claims that he was unaware of the group’s history and was poorly advised due to a lack of staff at the time.

“Throughout his career in public service, Mr Scalise has spoken to hundreds of different groups with a broad range of viewpoints,” Bagley said in a statement from Scalise’s DC office. “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,” she added. “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.”

Nonetheless, Scalise confirmed in his subsequent Times-Picayune interview that he was aware of Duke – who is said to have addressed the conference by video-link – and it has been reported that the hotel that hosted the event was concerned enough to rebuke the group after it found out their politics.

The claims that Scalise was an “honoured guest” were first made by a Louisiana blogger, Lamar White, who unearthed evidence of Scalise’s participation in the event on a far-right website called Stormfront.

Duke is perhaps the most well-known white supremacist in America, and was briefly also a Louisiana state representative in the early 1990s after switching his party allegiance from Democrat to Republican.



Asked if he was concerned about the impact the alleged links would have on his job as House majority whip, Scalise, replied: “At the end of the day, you are judged by your character.”

