Anti-Trump Movement Launches Fundraising Push In Lead-Up To RNC

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as if driving a car as he speaks about illegal immigrants driving across the boarder during a rally at Sumter Country Civic Center in Sumter, S.C., Wednesday, F... Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures as if driving a car as he speaks about illegal immigrants driving across the boarder during a rally at Sumter Country Civic Center in Sumter, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) MORE LESS
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Republicans hoping to keep the GOP nomination out of Donald Trump’s hands on Sunday announced plans to raise money for staff and a possible legal defense fund, according to a Washington Post report.

“Free The Delegates,” a newly branded group of disgruntled Republican National Convention delegates who don’t want to support the party’s presumptive nominee, are formalizing their last-ditch effort to derail Trump with less than a month to go until the convention in Cleveland.

Previous #NeverTrump movements have failed to get off the ground. David French, the National Review writer floated as a third-party alternative to Trump, backed out within days of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol naming him as his pick.

Regina Thomson, a co-founder of “Free The Delegates,” told the Post that the group’s ultimate goal is to change party rules so that delegates can cast their votes for any candidate they choose, rather than in line with the results of state primaries and caucuses.

Trump secured the number of delegates needed to win the nomination outright in May, and was far ahead of the rest of the GOP field in the popular vote before those candidates dropped out of the race.

Officials including Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus have said that delegates are bound to the will of the voters as expressed in primary and convention results. RNC spokesman Sean Spicer on Friday dismissed plans to overthrow Trump at the convention as “silly” media speculation.

Trump himself said attempts to “steal” the nomination from him were “totally illegal,” charging that former 2016 candidates Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) were plotting against him.

“Free the Delegates” leaders told the Post that their campaign has nothing to do with any of Trump’s former rivals. According to organizers, 1,000 Republicans participated in the group’s Sunday night conference call pushing to raise money so that the group could identify other delegates wary of Trump and hire staff to assist their campaign on the ground in Cleveland.

They see House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) repeated claims that delegates should be able to change the rules at the convention as a wink of approval.

“Paul Ryan signed our permission slip,” Kendal Unruh, one of the group’s founders, told the Post.

Ryan said in a Sunday interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Republicans should feel free to vote their “conscience” on Trump.

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