Former GOP Officials Explore Forming New ‘Center-Right’ Party

More than 100 former GOP officials are exploring forming a new political party, citing disappointment with the direction of the current GOP.

Former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent spoke to CNN Thursday saying he and 120 Republicans spoke last week about forming a new party.

“Clearly, there are a number of Republicans like myself and other Republican leaders, who want a clean break from President Trump, and we are kind of rallying around some core founding principles like truth and honesty, and democracy, and rule of law,” Dent told CNN.

Initial reports identified former officials from the Trump, Reagan and both Bush administrations on last week’s call.

Dent’s decision to explore forming a new party came after 43 GOP senators voted to acquit former President Donald Trump on charges of inciting insurrection. “That’s what I’m most fearful of now, that Trump will feel vindicated. He’ll feel like he’s been exonerated,” Dent told CNN, also explaining that he anticipates Trump will make those who voted against him “accountable in his own perverse way.”

“What we want is, we don’t want to cling to the past, cling to a man who is disgraced, in any way, shape, or form. We don’t want to follow that man who brought nothing but defeat and misery and insurrection,” explained Dent. “Let’s go forward, not backwards.”

Former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said he too is part of the discussions for forming a new party. “I think what’s happened over the last three or four days has fortified a very large group of people” into thinking voting to acquit Trump that the “party is going to split into two pieces” making it “diluted and completely weakened,” Scaramucci told CNN.

Scaramucci believes that after Trump’s acquittal, anywhere from 5% to 20% of the GOP will break off and form a “right-center” conservative party.