Evan McMullin

David Evan McMullin (born April 2,

1976) is an American politician. He was
formerly chief policy director for the
House Republican Conference in the
U.S. House of Representatives. He has
also been a CIA operations officer, a
volunteer refugee resettlement officer
for the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan,
as well as an investment banker.
On August 8, 2016, he announced he would run as an independent candidate in the 2016
election for President of the United States, backed by the organization Better for America.
McMullin describes himself as a conservative alternative to the two major political parties'
candidates: Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Early life and education
McMullin was born in Provo, Utah, the son of computer scientist David McMullin and his wife
Lanie Bullard,[2] and grew up outside Seattle.
He is a 1994 graduate of Auburn Senior High School in Auburn, Washington, went on a Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mission to Southern Brazil after high school and then
attended Brigham Young University where he received a Bachelor's degree in International Law
and Diplomacy in 2001. He received a Master's of Business Administration degree from the
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011.
Career
After graduating from Brigham Young University in 2001 he 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.
In 2011, McMullin began working for the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs.
In 2013, McMullin became a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs for the 113th Congress. McMullin became the chief policy director of the
House Republican Conference in 2015 under Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (RWash.).McMullin resigned as chief policy director shortly before declaring his run for the
presidency.
Starting in 2013, McMullin was an International Advisory Board member for the Kennedy Center
for International Studies at Brigham Young University. McMullin is also a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations.
Public speaking

In March 2016, McMullin spoke at a TEDx talk at 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.
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 as it was in the mid 1960s," faulting the
federal government in that regard. Instead of helping people out of poverty, McMullin argued
that the government had created a safety net to "make poverty more tolerable".[14]