One of David Duke’s right hand haters, Kenny Knight, is now trying to run interference for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise with a story that Scalise didn’t actually attend that white supremacist conference after all. Knight says it was pure coincidence; Scalise just happened to give a speech at the same hotel and conference hall, but it really had nothing to do with all those white supremacists.

Kenny Knight is a longtime associate of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991. He’s been a key player in news that broke on Sunday that indicated Scalise addressed the white supremacist convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization when he was a Louisiana state representative in May 2002.

Knight said on Tuesday that it’s “totally incorrect” to say Scalise spoke at that convention.

“He spoke early in the day to a contingent of people, prior to the conference kicking off,” Knight said. “He was not there as a guest speaker at the conference.”

Hey, it could happen to anybody; you’re just giving an innocuous speech about puppies and kitties, and suddenly you’re surrounded by white supremacists.

Problem is, Scalise has already acknowledged he spoke at the hate conference, and David Duke has stated that Scalise was invited to it; and even if there were any truth to white supremacist Kenny Knight’s tale, it’s impossible to believe Scalise didn’t know what was going on at that conference: White Supremacist Banners, Racist Talks at Later Events of Group Steve Scalise Previously Addressed, Civil Rights Group Says.

Banners proclaiming “White Power” and “White Pride Worldwide” plastered the walls, and speakers gave racist speeches at later conferences in Kenner of a white supremacist organization that U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise says he had addressed in Metairie in 2002, an investigator with the Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights group said Tuesday.

The law center didn’t have an investigator at the 2002 conference of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization at which Scalise has acknowledged that he spoke. But Heidi Beirich, director of the center’s “Intelligence Project,” said EURO events she attended in 2004 and 2005 in Kenner left no doubt about the group’s racist agenda.

“The conferences were a full day of people giving speeches representing the worst in racism or anti-Semitism,” said Beirich.