Rep. backs Clinton despite robo-calls

ATLANTA, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Robo-calls blasting U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia for backing Hillary Clinton won't sway his allegiance, the longtime congressman and civil rights icon says.

The automated telephone calls criticizing Lewis for backing the Democratic New York senator for president came from John Garst, co-founder of an Atlanta phone-banking firm who dislikes Lewis, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said. In the calls, Garst exhorted listeners to phone Lewis and urge him to support fellow African-American Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, for the Democratic presidential nod.

Lewis called the incident the "strangest thing I've ever dealt with since I've been in elected office."