Thread: Former CIA Agent to Launch Independent Presidential Bid

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cia-a...ry?id=41201256

The gentleman to run is Evan McMullin, former CIA agent.

Former CIA Officer Evan McMullin to Launch Independent Presidential Bid

By Shushannah Walshe

Aug 8, 2016, 9:18 AM ET

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Evan McMullin, a former CIA counterterrorism officer, will run for president as a third-party conservative alternative to Donald Trump, GOP operatives working to back the candidate told ABC News today.

The group, Better for America, a 501(c)(4) organization that cannot officially endorse or back McMillan'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.

It's an extreme uphill climb, but they 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.

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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 had recently been chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, will file today and in a statement told ABC News exclusively:

“In a year where Americans have lost faith in the candidates of both major parties, it’s time for a generation of new leadership to step up. It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us. I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a conservative choice for President.”

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.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cia-a...ry?id=41201256

Looks like a blatant attempt to split the vote from the never Trump Romney camp. I have to assume that they want Hillary Clinton, despicable. IMO

Conservative Donor’s Group Presses Ballot Access for a Third-Party Candidate

By MAGGIE HABERMAN
JUNE 14, 2016


Demonstrators against Donald J. Trump’s presidential efforts were outside the Republican National Committee’s headquarters in May when the candidate met with party leaders in Washington.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York TimesA conservative donor who has been scouring Republican ranks for a third-party candidate is pressing ahead with a group to get on the ballot in dozens of states. The candidate will come once the group sees that the ballot access is possible.

The donor, John Kingston, a bundler and ally of Mitt Romney, said he will bankroll a ballot-access project to create a path for someone to run as another option. The effort is being called Better for America.

The idea is “to do a proof of concept for everybody,” Mr. Kingston said. “It exists, there is a pathway, there is a road that you can be going down.”

The Massachusetts man was heavily involved in efforts led by the Weekly Standard editor William Kristol to find a challenger to both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump for a third-party line. His approach is similar to one used by a group, Americans Elect, in 2012, when it tried creating a ballot line unattached to a major party.

Better for America has Mr. Kingston working with the pollster Joel Searby as the chief strategist, as well as the lawyers Mohammad Jazil and Matthew Sawyer. Mr. Sawyer was the general counsel for the Texas business magnate H. Ross Perot’s Reform Party presidential run in 1996. Anne MacDonald, who was the chief of staff to the first lady Laura Bush, is also advising the group.


Members of the group said the project gives a shot at getting on the ballot almost everywhere, even with deadlines to do so having passed for Texas and North Carolina.

This week is crucial because a number of the states’ ballot access deadlines are due.

“On the ballot access side of this we’re all heads down and focusing on this as much as we can,” Mr. Sawyer said.

Photo

A rally for H. Ross Perot in New Jersey in October 1992, when Mr. Perot staged an independent run for president. CreditEdward Keating/The New York Times
He and Mr. Jazil said that about a dozen lawyers are working on the project, and that they believe they can still get on the ballot in North Carolina and Texas through the courts.

The effort remains quixotic, and is plainly in part a “Stop Trump” effort, despite the failure of such attempts in the past. Mr. Searby, in an interview, acknowledged that he became serious about this since February, as he watched Mr. Trump’s rise in the primaries, and as his comments have become more incendiary.

“We do not have to be boxed in by this Hobson’s choice moment of Evil No. 1 or Slightly Less Evil No. 2,” Mr. Kingston said, referring to the major parties’ presumptive nominees Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.

He would not say how much he is spending, although he said it is “less than seven figures.”
“This doesn’t become real unless people get behind it,” Mr. Kingston said.

That has been his problem so far. While Mr. Romney and Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska were aggressively recruited by Mr. Kristol, both have declined.

Mr. Kingston does not see the Libertarian Party ticket as viable, either, despite the presence of William Weld, the former Massachusetts governor, as the vice-presidential candidate.

“You saw the convention,” Mr. Kingston said, referring to the Florida-based political event in late May when Mr. Weld and Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, were selected. One of the convention’s participants, a candidate for party chairman, took his clothes off.

“I just don’t think that’s where the American people are,” Mr. Kingston said. “I think if Bill Weld was at the top of the ticket and it would be a totally different framework, then it would be something.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us...candidate.html

MITT EAST COAST PREMIERE AND DIRECTOR’S SCREENING

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Sword & Spoon Foundation brought the critically acclaimed film, MITT, to Boston with its East Coast Premiere and Director’s Screening. More than 300 hardy guests came out in a classic Nor’easter for the screening and reception. MITT’S award-winning director and Sword & Spoon partner, Greg Whiteley (One Potato Productions), talked about the making of the film, which reflects his exclusive access to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his family through six years and two presidential campaigns.

John and Jean Kingston were executive producers of the film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to impressive reviews and was bought by Netflix.

“For those who have worked with the Romneys over the last decades, we are pleased that people get to see the faith, humility, and virtue of the family we know . . . humility and virtue that often seemed lost in the public and media characterizations.” – John Kingston

http://www.swordandspoongroup.com/mitt-east-coast-premiere-and-directors-screening/

Oh my God, this is just craziness. Republicans who are not supporting Trump to win this election are committing party treason and hurting our country and citizens in ways that can never be repaired. Shame Shame Shame on you Sore Losers!!

It sounds like the same old crowd....JMO
Evangelicals for Mitt? ‘Grassroots’ Group Has Close Ties to the Romney Campaign

By Mark Benjamin
Dec. 12, 2011

Nancy and David French, a couple from Columbia, Tenn., are perhaps the most visible evangelical supporters of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. They started a group called Evangelicals for Mitt back in 2005. Both regularly post to a pro-Romney blog at the Evangelicals for Mitt website. Nancy French just last week began writing her posts from Des Moines, Iowa. And Nancy and David have both contributed to National Review, where they occasionally defend Romney and criticize his rivals.

“We started as a group of friends who supported him – grassroots,” Nancy French says. “We are not connected to the campaign. We do what we want and say what we want.”

Though David and Nancy French deny it, campaign finance experts say the couple’s group looks like a thinly disguised extension of the Romney campaign. “They appear to be able to spend lots of money, but won’t say where it comes from,” says Fred Wertheimer, founder and President of Democracy 21. “It is circumstantial evidence, but it suggests this is a shell group for a Romney operation.”

Indeed, what is perhaps most interesting about Evangelicals for Mitt is how apparent its links to Romney Central are. Nancy French worked for Romney’s 2008 campaign and partnered with Romney’s wife, Ann, on an unpublished book. The couple also served as steering committee vice chairs on Romney’s 2008 National Faith and Values Steering Committee.

The Frenchs are also quietly linked to two wealthy Romney donors in Massachusetts, John Kingston and Kurt Keilhacker, and all four have close ties to Romney’s campaign funding organization through a web of companies and nonprofits. Among other things, the four operate a Christian nonprofit organization that raises money out of a building in Beverly, Mass., at 138 Conant Street. The company that handles the Romney campaign’s finances shares that same address.

David and Nancy French come from modest means. Evangelicals for Mitt, however, has made news by spending serious money. The group tipped the scales in favor of Romney at the April 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll in New Orleans by buying at least 200 tickets for Romney supporters at a total cost of nearly $40,000. It handed out 800 copies of Romney’s book “No Apology” and 2,000 Evangelicals for Mitt piggybanks. Attendees who took up the offer speculated in the press that Evangelicals for Mitt must have found them via Romney’s campaign e-mail contact list.

When asked by TIME where that money came from, Nancy French merely says, “We’ve got friends.” And she argues that her group is not compelled to reveal the source of that money because the spending occurred in April 2010. “This was before he was a candidate,” she said of Romney. “So the campaign finance stuff did not apply in terms of the limits.”

That is true, says Larry Noble, a campaign finance attorney, who suggests the group has received sound legal advice. Noble says the group is also likely exempt from filing paperwork as a political action committee because David and Nancy currently restrict their advocacy to their own website and media outlets, although it is possible the group could still trigger the interest of the Federal Election Commission, depending on how it raises money. But nothing about Evangelicals for Mitt’s financing is public since the group has not organized itself as a political or nonprofit entity. “We are nothing,” Nancy French says. “We are a group of friends.”

Though Nancy French is coy about the origin of the money that her group spent in New Orleans, she and David made a similar effort on behalf of Romney at the same convention in Memphis, Tenn., in 2006. The Associated Press reported that Nancy and David arranged for some 200 Romney supporters to be put up at a Marriott hotel in Memphis and that Kingston and Keilhacker paid the bills. (Kingston and David French are old friends from Harvard law, Nancy tells TIME).

Kingston, Vice Chairman of Affiliated Managers Group, and Keilhacker, a venture capitalist, have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Romney and the Massachusetts GOP over the years. Like the Frenches, the two businessmen were also principals in Romney’s 2008 National Faith and Values Steering Committee.

Kingston, Keilhacker, and David and Nancy French also together run SixSeeds, a Christian nonprofit group that raises funds out of the office at 138 Conant Street in Beverly, Mass. SixSeeds’ tax records show the treasurer of the nonprofit is Bradley Crate, who is also the chief financial officer of the Romney campaign. Crate’s campaign finance company, Red Curve Solutions, is housed at the same office at Conant Street.

Crate’s brother, Darrell, is treasurer of the Romney campaign. Before leaving the company to join the Romney campaign, Darrell Crate was the chief financial officer at AMG, working alongside Kingston. Darrell Crate, who was also chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party when Romney was governor of the state, is also listed in a SixSeeds pamphlet as a member of the group’s “Ambassador Roundtable.” In another AMG connection, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Sean Healey, is married to Kerry Healey, whom Romney plucked from obscurity to become lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

These new details about Evangelicals for Mitt come as the candidate is struggling with evangelical voters. In key early primary states, Gingrich’s support among born-again Christians is nearly double or triple Romney’s. Last week’s TIME/CNN/ORC poll found Romney has only 13% of born-again support in Iowa, while Gingrich boasts 31% and Ron Paul claim 19%. In Florida, Gingrich outpaces the pack with fully 50% of born-again support; Romney is a distant second at 22%. South Carolina’s numbers tell a similar story. If Gingrich continues to win that crucial evangelical voting bloc, Romney, ever the victim of evangelical caution towards Mormonism, may have to rely on David and Nancy French more than ever.
http://swampland.time.com/2011/12/12...mney-campaign/

Thank you again, Judy.

So good to see the other stories added to give us more insight into shenanigans. Thank for for posting.

They are dividing the vote, making up things and doing everything to create chaos and turn voters off or away.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

Thank you again, Judy.

So good to see the other stories added to give us more insight into shenanigans. Thank for for posting.

They are dividing the vote, making up things and doing everything to create chaos and turn voters off or away.

I found it suspicious when I went to the Better for America site and there was no disclosure on it's owner, supporters or an advisory board.

Reason for suspicion is warranted. Seems like some of these people have been working for years to intefer in the elections.

This election they have gone crazy mad to see to it that Donald Trump does not win.

Thank you Newmexican for the stories you added.

September 8, 2016
By Rick Moran

Stop the presses. The #NeverTrump movement has found a sucker to run a hopelessly losing campaign for no reason whatsoever.

If that sounds harsh, it's meant to be.

The group Better for America is putting forward a former CIA counterterrorism officer, Evan McMullin, and are trying to pass him off as a legitimate presidential candidate.

Don't feel bad if you've never heard of this guy before. His major experience - chief policy director of the House Republican Conference. Prior to that, he belonged to the most secret federal agency in government.

After the election, he can go back to a well deserved anonymity.

ABC News:

“In a year where Americans have lost faith in the candidates of both major parties, it’s time for a generation of new leadership to step up. It’s never too late to do the right thing, and America deserves much better than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton can offer us. I humbly offer myself as a leader who can give millions of disaffected Americans a conservative choice for President.”

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

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McMullin's bigest problem - getting on the ballot in all 50 states. He's already missed the deadline for independent candidates in Texas, which was May 9. And some states have daunting numbers of petition signatures that he will probably fall short of.

Besides that, what has this guy got to offer that would cause millions of Republicans and Democrats to bolt their party and vote for him? He will likely be outspent by Clinton 100-1 and Trump by 35-1, making his candidacy worse than a vanity campaign. It will be designed to be a spoiler campaign, siphoning votes away from Trump.

So why are the #NeverTrumpers going to all this trouble? Why not just declare your support for Clinton and save us all a lot of time and effort? They actually believe they will be part of the effort to rebuild the GOP after what could be a disastrous election, so coming out for Hillary is not an option. In fact, they will be pariahs if their plan succeeds.

If McMullin gets more than 1% of the vote nationwide I will be shocked.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...p_darling.html