Story highlights "I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president," he told NBC News

Clinton's former aides have been reluctant to use similar language

Washington (CNN) Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis says he doesn't see President-elect Donald Trump as a "legitimate" commander in chief following Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

"I don't see this President-elect as a legitimate president," Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, told NBC News' Chuck Todd in a clip released Friday. "I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton."

Lewis -- an ally of Martin Luther King Jr. who was brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 while marching for civil rights -- also said he planned to skip Trump's inauguration next week, which he said would be the first ceremony he would not attend since coming to Washington. He was elected to Congress in 1986.

"You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong," Lewis said.

It was an astonishing rebuke by a sitting member of Congress toward an incoming President. Trump, however, largely launched his political career by calling into question the legitimacy of President Barack Obama's presidency by repeatedly suggesting he wasn't born in the United States.

Read More