Mark Everson, the former IRS commissioner who later took the helm of the American Red Cross and was forced to resign, has thrown his hat into the ring for President of the United States. He’ll run as a Republican.
Everson was pushed out of the Red Cross in November 2007 after it was learned he was involved with a married chapter president who was also pregnant with his child. Everson was married at the time with two adopted children and has since divorced.
He was in the $500,000 job less than six months. His only statement on the resignation was a written release in which he is quoted as saying: “I am resigning my position for personal and family reasons, and deeply regret it is impossible for me to continue in a job so recently undertaken. I leave with extraordinary admiration for the Red Cross.”
The American Red Cross situation is mentioned in the biography listed on the MarkforAmerica.com website. “In his brief tenure Mark strengthened relations with the Pentagon — which had atrophied following Vietnam– and took the decision to combat Johnson & Johnson when the company sought to limit the nation’s leading charity in its use of the red cross as its trademark. The board of governors asked Mark to resign after just six months on the job as the result of an inappropriate personal relationship with a distant subordinate.”
The child and his mother are pictured on the campaign’s webpage. Everson lives in Pascagoula, Miss., and according to the site “where his first grade son attends public school and plays soccer and baseball.”
A call to the campaign was not immediately returned.
Everson’s “Letter to America” lays out six initiatives:
- Fundamental tax reform.
- Confronting the lawlessness of the Big Banks.
- Re-establishing the draft in order to have a shared sense of national service.
- Real, balanced reforms to our entitlement programs.
- Reinforcing the American tradition of assimilation through comprehensive immigration reform.
- Serving only a single term to keep re-election politics out of Presidential decision-making.
Everson spent six years in the Reagan administration. He started at the United States Information Agency working on public diplomacy programs relating to deployment of intermediate nuclear forces in Europe and surrogate radio broadcasting to Cuba. In 1985, he moved to the U.S. Department of Justice. While at Justice, his assignments included Deputy Commissioner of the INS. In that capacity he oversaw all agency operations including the Border Patrol and inspectors at the ports of entry.
In the Bush Administration, Everson was the Controller and then Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management & Budget. He served as the 46th IRS Commissioner from May 2003 through May 2007.
Everson also has state government experience, having served in the administration of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. While in Indiana, he ran the state’s unemployment insurance system, and oversaw the state’s workforce training and adult education programs.
He is the second American Red Cross president to attempt a run at the White House. Elizabeth Dole ran for but did not win the Republican nomination in 2000.
A call to the Red Cross seeking comment was not immediately returned.
