Citing “multiple sources” in a series of posts to Twitter, Scarborough said Evan McMullin will run as an independent candidate. | POLITICO Screen grab Anti-Trump Republican Evan McMullin to launch independent bid for presidency

Evan McMullin, the former chief policy director for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, will offer discontented members of his party an option this November by launching an independent, conservative bid for president.

“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," McMullin said in a statement to ABC News. "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.”


Citing “multiple sources” in a series of posts to Twitter, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was the first to announce McMullin's bid. He said McMullin will kick off his campaign Monday and has “the backing of key $$ contributors in the Republican Party.”

BuzzFeed also reported McMullin’s independent bid for the White House, similarly citing unnamed sources. And before noon, a web site launched soliciting donations for "Evan McMullin for President."

McMullin, who has never held elected office, was an operations officer for the CIA for 11 years from 1999 to 2010, according to his LinkedIn page. He earned an MBA in 2011 from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the alma mater of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. He has also worked at Goldman Sachs, as a volunteer refugee resettlement officer for the United Nations and as a deckhand on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska.

An aide for the House Republican Conference said McMullin is no longer an employee there. Conference spokesman Nate Hodson said "The House Republican Conference has zero knowledge of his intentions."

On his Twitter account, McMullin has been vocal about his opposition to Trump, characterizing him as an authoritarian and calling for the Manhattan billionaire to release his tax returns, something he has refused to do to this point.

“Authoritarians like @realDonaldTrump use promises of law & order to justify infringing on civil rights as they consolidate control by force,” McMullin tweeted on July 21, his most recent post.

“Opposing @realDonaldTrump is about putting principle over power, a virtue some in Washington are too quick to abandon. #NeverTrump,” he wrote on May 7, just days after Trump became the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

McMullin is not the first Republican to consider mounting a third-party bid against Trump, although he appears to be the first one willing to act on it. National Review writer David French publicly toyed with launching an anti-Trump White House run in the spring before ultimately deciding against it in early June.