This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin has a warning for Republicans: You're at risk of becoming the party of Vladimir Putin.
Conservatives in the United States are already on course to be "aligned" with the totalitarian president of Russia, McMullin said Wednesday in an op-ed for The Washington Post, "given Donald Trump's presidency, the Republican base's increasingly favorable views of Moscow and the House GOP leadership's disinterest in investigating and preventing Russian interference."
It's likely many in the party will dismiss McMullin's cautionary criticism. The Utah native and former CIA operative has become somewhat of a gadfly among Republicans, who believe he leaked audio of GOP leaders joking that Trump was paid off by Putin (even though the source of that taped conversation has not been released). Some conservatives also resent McMullin for abandoning the party in his independent bid for office.
Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, rebutted McMullin's op-ed, saying it's "factually wrong."
"I don't take it seriously," the conservative congressman added. "I don't think it's an accurate reflection of the Republican Party or Republican leadership at all."
Stewart serves on the House Intelligence Committee, which has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. He takes offense — and says it's "just silly" — that McMullin alleges the GOP isn't interested in probing the topic.
"For heaven's sake, is anyone really proposing that Republicans would subservient themselves to Vladimir Putin. I just don't think it's a serious conclusion at all, looking at the world around us right now," Stewart said. "Show me a single Republican who has a positive review of Vladimir Putin. I don't know any. I mean that sincerely."
Still, McMullin hasn't dropped his criticisms of Trump. After losing in the election, he launched a grass-roots movement, Stand Up Republic, opposing the president. Much of that effort is centered on the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia.
McMullin, who was born in Provo, is especially wary of a deepening connection to the overseas power. He says the president "continues to sow doubt" about and dispute whether Russia meddled in the election, though U.S. intelligence reports have concluded Putin ordered cyberattacks to boost Trump's chances to win.
"Our commander in chief seems more interested in protecting Moscow than he does in deterring its future attacks," McMullin writes in the op-ed.
Meanwhile, Trump is set to meet with Putin next week at the G20 Summit in Germany. During a briefing Thursday about the trip, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters that there is "no specific agenda."
"It's really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about," he said.
McMullin fears that kind of relationship between the two leaders is part of a growing series of "dangerous trends" that includes fewer Republicans seeing Putin as a threat; the Trump administration moving to reopen two diplomatic Russian compounds on U.S. soil; and House GOP leaders delaying a vote on a Senate bill to impose sanctions on Moscow.
That legislation includes a provision to stop Trump from lifting any punishments imposed on the foreign country without the approval of Congress — and the White House has lobbied against it.
"Republican voters had long held a healthy distrust of Putin," McMullin argues, "but Trump's persistent affinity for Moscow and other Republican leaders' silence are changing Republican voters' minds, now making it politically costly for GOP leaders to defend the nation from this foreign adversary."
McMullin and Trump have had a rocky relationship since the campaign.
Trump recognized McMullin's third party candidacy but danced around saying his name. The president instead called the independent hopeful a "puppet of a loser" and "some guy" from Utah. After his victory, Trump mocked him as "Evan McMuffin ... or something like that" at a victory rally in Florida.
The Mormon independent candidate appealed to many conservative voters who didn't support Trump. But he faced an unlikely bid for the White House, gaining his highest percentage of support in a state he ultimately lost: Utah.
Some early polls had McMullin in the lead at 31 percent, eliciting a response from Trump, who said it would be "devastating" to lose the state and could cost him the election. Trump won Utah, though, with 45 percent of the vote. He outpaced McMullin by 24 percentage points, with the independent finishing third, after Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Twitter: @CourtneyLTanner