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Rep. Lewis Admits He Skipped Bush's Inauguration

January 17, 2017

During a conversation with MSNBC's Mariana Atencio, Rep. John Lewis (D., GA) corrected his previous statement that he had never missed an inauguration.

During an interview on Meet The Press, Lewis said he would be skipping President-elect Trump's Inauguration, "It will be the first one that I miss since I’ve been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong."

When speaking to Atencio, the congressman corrected himself, "We made a statement, we issued a statement much earlier that we did not attend the first Bush inauguration. That is factual."

Atencio sought to clarify why Lewis skipped the Bush Inauguration, "because you did not consider him a legitimate president at the time?"

"No, we didn't attend it like so many other members of congress did then, but President Bush is a friend of mine," Lewis responded.

A statement from Lewis' spokesperson confirmed that he skipped Bush's inauguration because he believed him to be illegitimate.

"His absence at that time was also a form of dissent. He did not believe the outcome of that election, including the controversies around the results in Florida and the unprecedented intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, reflected a free, fair and open democratic process," it read according to a CNBC report.