PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD Trump has lashed out at a prominent civil rights icon and lawmaker who said he is skipping next week’s inauguration ceremony because he sees the New York businessman’s election as illegitimate.
Trump tweeted:
Lewis, who represents a district in the southern state of Georgia that includes Atlanta and surrounding areas, yesterday became the most high-profile Democratic lawmaker to boycott Trump’s inauguration.
At least eight House Democrats have publicly stated they will not be attending Trump’s swearing-in at the US Capitol next Friday, with several indicating their absence will be an act of political protest.
“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” Lewis told NBC’s Meet the Press talk show in an interview that will air Sunday.
“I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton,” he said, adding that he will skip the presidential inauguration for the first time since becoming a member of Congress in 1987.
You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong.
US intelligence organizations have accused Russia of cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and distributing hacked emails from senior Clinton aides in an effort to influence the US election.
Lewis, 76, is known for his decades of work in the civil rights movement and marched with Martin Luther King at the August 1963 rally in Washington at which King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Lewis took part in so-called Freedom Rides — challenges to segregated facilities at bus terminals in the South.
On 7 March, 1965, he led a march in Selma, Alabama that ended in an attack by state troopers on the protesters that later became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Monday marks Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, an annual federal holiday commemorating the birthday of the civil rights leader.
© – AFP 2017 with reporting by Rónán Duffy
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