How's That Republican Rebranding Coming Along, White Supremacist Edition

From the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle:

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House majority whip, acknowledged Monday that he spoke at a gathering hosted by white nationalist leaders while serving as a state representative in 2002, thrusting a racial controversy into House Republican ranks days before the party assumes control of both congressional chambers. 

The 48-year-old Scalise, who ascended to the House GOP’s third-ranking post earlier this year, confirmed through an adviser that he once appeared at a convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. 

That organization, founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Scalise claims he didn't know at the time it was a white supremacist group, which would make him the only person in Louisiana who didn't know David Duke was a notorious racist and former Ku Klux Klan leader.