Lamar White Jr. has been credited as the blogger who first highlighted how House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) spoke to a group of white nationalists in 2002.
White broke the story on his website on Sunday. Although he was initially criticized by some of Scalise’s supporters, the congressman eventually acknowledged he was at the gathering and then apologized on Tuesday afternoon.
Scalise was at the gathering addressing a the the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, led by David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Louisiana state representative.
White revealed in a new interview that he simply googled the two names after receiving a tip from a source.
“I came across this story through a connection with the candidate who ran against Scalise in 2008. They said that they had always heard these rumors about Steve Scalise going to a function associated with David Duke,” he told the Washington Post.
“I was vaguely familiar that he had talked about David Duke in the past. So I googled Steve Scalise and David Duke and within 20 seconds found the Stormfront posts.” Stormfront is a white supremacist website. A commentor noted several times that Scalise was at the event.
White also emphasized that he doesn’t view himself as a “crazy liberal,” as some have labeled him. “I like to think of myself as equal opportunity. If Scalise was a Democrat, I would have published it as well,” he said.
White added to The Huffington Post that the story is still important despite happening so long ago, because “even though it was 12 years ago, it is important because this man was 36 years old, a state representative, an elected official. He knew exactly what he was getting into.”
White, 32, is in law school. He has blogged for nearly nine years.
