'Racist Pig' Commissioner Walks Out Of Meeting

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — A Gwinnett County commissioner who called civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis a "racist pig" in a Facebook post walked out of a meeting Tuesday as protests against him began.

As they have at every commission meeting since Tommy Hunter's controversial January post, protesters had lined up to speak against Hunter, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The first speaker during a public comments segment of the commission meeting kept speaking after he left. The second speaker then asked where Hunter had gone.

Board chair Charlotte Nash said he was "gone for the afternoon," the AJC reported.

Hunter's exit comes less than a week after he walked out of a testy local NAACP meeting at which he had been invited to speak.

In January, Lewis — who represents Georgia's Fifth Congressional District based in Atlanta — was embroiled in a feud with President Donald Trump. He said at one point that he didn't view Trump as "a legitimate president, in part because he believed evidence that Russian interference helped Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

"John Lewis is a racist pig," Hunter wrote on his personal Facebook page during the dispute.
The post goes on to twice refer to Democrats with the insult "Demonrats" and call them "a bunch of idiots."

Hunter, a Republican, represents Snellville, Loganville and other parts of an ethnically diverse span of Gwinnett County. He was first elected in 2012, and narrowly re-elected this year.

That and other similarly worded social media posts led to an ethics complaint being filed against Hunterearlier this month.

The complaint, filed by two attorneys on behalf of a Gwinnett County resident, claims that Hunter violated three parts of the Gwinnett County Code of Ethics with his online behavior. It is the first time Gwinnett County's ethics ordinance has been invoked.

Since the controversy has arisen, Hunter has apologized for his "choice of words," but has steadfastly refused to step down, as protesters — many spurred by the local Democratic Party and branch of the NAACP — have requested.

Photo courtesy Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners