Report: Event organizer says Scalise didn't speak to white supremacist group

Reports that Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, the third-ranking Republican in the House, gave a speech to a group connected with white supremacist David Duke in 2002 are not accurate, the man who organized the events said Wednesday.

Kenny Knight, a longtime political adviser to Duke, told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that Scalise spoke at a meeting of the Jefferson Heights Civic Association, not affiliated with the European-American Unity and Rights conference that was held in the same Metairie hotel two-and-a-half hours before the white nationalist event started.

Barbara Noble, who was dating Knight and said she attended the meeting, also said Wednesday that Scalise spoke to the civic group, not EURO, according to the paper.

Reports about Scalise attending the 2002 event were published earlier this week. The congressman has since apologized.

The connection to the Duke group was reported by a liberal-leaning Louisiana blogger and was picked up by other media outlets after Scalise confirmed that he had spoken at the event, a decision he said he now regrets.

Duke, also a former Klu Klux Klan leader and Louisiana state lawmaker, told ABC that Scalise spoke at the workshop he organized but also said Scalise may not have known who he was addressing.

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