PERSON: Evan McMullin

David Evan McMullin is the former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives and a former CIA agent. On August 8, 2016, he announced he would run as an independent candidate in the 2016 election for President of the United States, reportedly backed by the organization Better for America. McMullin describes himself as a conservative alternative to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the candidates of the two major political parties.<br> <br> McMullin was born in Provo, Utah,[3] to Lanie (nee Bullard) and David McMullin. David is a computer scientist, and Lanie currently serves as a local government official in Everett, Washington.[6] Evan McMullin is a Mormon.<br> <br> He graduated from Auburn Senior High School, Class of 1994,in Auburn, Washington,, Where he was voted most likely to be President of the United States[citation needed] has 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.<br> <br> After graduating from Brigham Young University in 2001, McMullin served as a Mormon missionary in Brazil, and worked in Amman, Jordan, as a Volunteer Refugee Resettlement Officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency from 2001 until 2011, working overseas on counterterrorism and intelligence operations in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia as an undercover operations officer with the National Clandestine Service.<br> <br> In 2011, McMullin worked for the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs.<br> <br> In 2013, McMullin became a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for the 113th Congress.[3] McMullin became the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference in 2015 under Chairwoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-Wash.). McMullin resigned from his position as chief policy director shortly before declaring his run for president.<br> <br> Starting in 2013, McMullin was an International Advisory Board Member for the Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University.[10] McMullin is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[11]<br> <br> In March 2016, McMullin spoke at a TEDx talk at the London Business School. He criticized governments in the West and elsewhere for allowing genocides and other mass atrocities to continue to occur. He called for increased “political competition” through grassroots activism and social media to motivate leaders.<br> <br> At a speech to the University of Pennsylvania alumni association in Washington, D.C. in May 2016, McMullin said that despite “tremendous” expenditure on anti-poverty programs “the poverty rate today, in America, is still about the same that it was in the mid 1960s” due to the incompetence of the federal government. Instead of helping people out of poverty, McMullin said, the government created a safety net to “make poverty more tolerable”.<br> <br> On August 8, 2016, McMullin announced that he would run as a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election as an independent. He has the support of several anti-Trump Republican donors. McMullin’s presidential bid is also backed by several former members of Better for America, a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to getting nationwide ballot access for an independent candidate for President in the 2016 election. McMullin’s late entrance into the race caused him to miss several state ballot deadlines, so he will not appear on the presidential ballots of many states. According to ballot access specialist Richard Winger, “If Better for America has the resources to complete petition drives very quickly, it could still petition for McMullin in approximately one-third of the states.” McMullin’s campaign is supported by some members of the “Never Trump” movement.<br> <br> In a statement issued on the day he launched his campaign, he said: “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.”<br> <br> On August 8, 2016, the same day that McMullin launched his independent bid, it was announced that Kahlil Byrd and Chris Ashby, Republican strategists with expertise in third-party ballot access, would form a Super PAC called Stand Up America to support McMullin’s campaign. Byrd is a former adviser for Better for America. The PAC will be used for TV and digital ads, live events, and grass-roots organizing, but not for suing for ballot access.<br> <br> — Wikipedia