Anti-Trump former GOP officials readying threat to start a third party: report

WASHINGTON - A group of 100 former Republican officials reportedly will release a letter this week threatening to create a third party if the GOP does not change its course and break with former President Trump.  

The statement, set to be released Thursday, is headlined "A Call for American Renewal" and is the kickoff of exploratory moves to break away from the party.  

The group is said to be dismayed by Republicans’ allegiance to Trump and his unfounded assertions that the 2020 election was rigged, according to Reuters.

A group of Republican officials first toyed with the idea of forming a center-right breakaway party in February, in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the report stated.

"The Republican Party is broken. It's time for a resistance of the 'rationals' against the 'radicals,'" said Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration official and one of the group’s organizers. Taylor was the author of an anonymous New York Times piece in 2018 entitled: "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."

Signatories of the letter include former ambassadors, governors, congressional members and Cabinet secretaries.

Backers of the reform group are said to include former Republican Governors Tom Ridge, Christine Todd Whitman, George W. Bush-era Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and former House members Charlie Dent, Barbara Comstock, Reid Ribble and Mickey Edwards.

The letter will come on the heels of a closed-door vote Wednesday to oust Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from Republican leadership over her repeated condemnations of Trump. The group wants a return to "principled" leadership and to reject conspiracy theories and support Republicans such as Cheney.  

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The group may face some trouble getting any current GOP lawmakers to sign on. Even Cheney herself rejected the idea of a third party in February, saying it would empower Democrats.  

Fox News' Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

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