Evan McMullin, a former CIA counterterrorism officer, will run for president as a third-party conservative alternative to Donald Trump, he said today.
"With the stakes so high for our nation and at this late stage in the process, I can no longer stand on the sidelines," McMullin said in a statement. "Our country needs leaders who are in it for the right reasons and who actually understand what makes this country the greatest on earth. Leaders who will unite us and guide us to a prosperous, secure future, beyond the dysfunction of a broken political system."
He took aim at both major-party presidential nominees.
"Hillary Clinton is a corrupt career politician who has recklessly handled classified information in an attempt to avoid accountability and put American lives at risk including those of my former colleagues," he said of the Democrat. "She fails the basic tests of judgment and ethics any candidate for president must meet."
As for Donald Trump, he "appeals to the worst fears of Americans at a time we need unity, not division," McMullin said. "Republicans are deeply divided by a man who is perilously close to gaining the most powerful position in the world, and many rightly see him as a real threat to our Republic."
The operatives working on McMullin's bid resigned from Better for America in order to push his candidacy. Better for America, a 501(c)(4) organization that cannot officially endorse or back McMullin's bid, has been working for months on trying to select a candidate and get on ballots throughout the country. In some states, like Texas, they will likely have to sue to get on the ballot. A 501(c)(4) is an issue-based nonprofit that can raise unlimited funds and does not have to disclose its donors.
"Just as the American Revolution required men and women devoted to liberty and freedom to stand up and be counted, this moment calls a new generation to the same sacred task." McMullin said in the statement. "With that in mind, I have decided to pursue the cause of American renewal and the presidency of the United States of America."
It's an extreme uphill climb, but his supporters are confident McMullin, 40, can act as a disruptor who they hope can peel off some red states in a race where some Republicans are still resistant to Donald Trump.
McMullin’s candidacy, backed by some Republicans, shows how the “Never Trump” movement is still working to upend Trump even with less than three months left until the general election. McMullin may be a long shot, but will have a legitimate organization behind him.
McMullin, who resigned this morning as chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, was planning to incorporate an election committee today, get a bank account for it and start raising and spending money in a manner consistent with all applicable Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service requirements, according to the operatives launching his campaign. They will then file FEC forms on Aug. 15 to officially file the candidacy, they said.
The group says prominent Republicans will back McMullin, who has some well-known GOP operatives working behind the effort, including Republican consultant Rick Wilson and Florida-based pollster and operative Joel Searby. Better for America has been funded in part by John Kingston, a Boston-based conservative donor who bundled for Mitt Romney.
McMullin was born in Provo, Utah, and earned a bachelor’s degree in international law and diplomacy from Brigham Young University and a master’s of business administration from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
McMullin served as a Mormon missionary in Brazil and volunteer refugee resettlement officer in Amman, Jordan, on behalf of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. On Sept. 11, 2001, he was in training at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He completed his training and volunteered for overseas service in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, spearheading counterterrorism and intelligence operations in some of the most dangerous nations, according to the group.
Once he left the CIA in 2011, McMullin went to work for Goldman Sachs in the San Francisco Bay Area and in 2013 became a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and later the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference.
from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2aGZ7ba
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