Senators Are Puzzled by DHS Pick Markwayne Mullin’s Travel History

Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing Wednesday to be secretary of the Department of Homeland Security ended with senators moving to a classified setting so he could answer questions behind closed doors about his international travel.

The lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security Committee were confused about Mullin’s trip to an undisclosed location when he was a member of the House of Representatives, which he seemed to bring up for the first time when clarifying other travel at the hearing. His attempts to provide information, however, seemed to only spur more confusion and open him up to a new line of questioning.

“Senator, I think there’s a misunderstanding here that I can clear up, if you want me to clear up for you,” Mullin said in response to the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Gary Peters. “This is an official trip, and it is classified, but in 2015 I was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area, which was scheduled for 2016.”

“The training was awful,” Mullin continued, before noting that it was an “official trip as a member” and was not listed on his paperwork submitted to the committee. He refused to answer subsequent questions in a public setting regarding the trip.

Mullin said the “classified” travel took place during what he called “a special program in the House” at some point between 2015 and 2016. Mullin agreed to meet with the entire Homeland Security Committee after the three-hour hearing to discuss his travels, following requests from the committee’s chair, Sen. Rand Paul, and Peters.

“There’s nothing in the Constitution about siloing us all,” Paul, a Republican, told reporters as he walked out of the committee room. “So now, I think that we ought to hear about it. It may be innocent, but it makes people curious when you say, ‘I had a secret mission for somebody, but I won’t tell you who,’ and only four people in the world know about it.”

Paul, who got off to a contentious start with Mullin at the hearing, told reporters that he would vote “no” on Mullin’s nomination. The Homeland Security Committee is currently set for a committee vote Thursday. The Trump administration is hoping to have Mullin confirmed to the role to replace Kristi Noem by the end of the month, and while he’s widely expected to be confirmed, the questions around his travel created tension in the process.

After the classified session, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said he thought the vote should be postponed.

“This situation is weird and bizarre,” Blumenthal said.

Sen. James Lankford, Mullin’s fellow senator from Oklahoma, said the meeting after the hearing was “helpful.” Lankford added that he had no concerns about Mullin’s truthfulness, but said that it would be Paul’s decision whether the vote moves forward on Thursday. He said he believed it should happen.

Mullin, who served in the House for ten years before being elected to the Senate, said during the hearing that at the time of his classified travel, he was not yet on the House Intelligence Committee.

The first exchange over Mullin’s travel came in response to questioning from Peters, who said he reviewed information from the FBI on Tuesday regarding official travel but still had questions.

“Your FBI report does show some travel, to Georgia and Azerbaijan, you said that was not for tourism?”

Mullin responded by saying that those travels were part of a 2021 failed effort that was “well documented” to “go get the Americans out of Afghanistan.”

Peters said that he asked the FBI on Tuesday if classified activities would appear on the documents he had requested from the agency pertaining to Mullin, to which the FBI responded that they would.

“So you’re in no classified document, according to the federal government,” Peters said, “yet you’re telling me you did all this classified work? I don’t understand.”

Mullin testified that he had joined a classified group, along with three other people, to train for and then participate in a mission, which he called an “official trip that is classified.”

When pressed by Peters on where Mullin had “smelled war,” a comment that he made in a TV appearance, Mullin said, “I just said that this was classified.”

“The dates, locations and mission, I’ve never spoken specifically details about,” Mullin said.

Peters said that he hoped Mullin was “portraying himself in a truthful way.”

Paul was among those most insistent on getting additional information.

“I think [the classified briefing] makes it much more likely that we have a vote tomorrow,” he said. Following the hearing, Paul told reporters that he would vote “no” if and when votes occur, but insisted that he needed Mullin to be forthcoming with information about his trip in order for committee votes to continue as planned.