Markwayne Mullin Sparks Confusion And Concern By Claiming He Had Been on a Secret Trip

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

Markwayne Mullin, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, sparked confusion and concern on Capitol Hill on Wednesday by claiming he had been on a classified trip when he was a member of the House.

The whole episode began when Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) grilled Mullin over his past claim that he had experienced the “smell of war” despite never serving in the military.

“Where did you ‘smell war,’ sir?” Peters asked.

“I just said that this was classified, and the dates, locations and the mission,” Mullin replied during the exchange, adding, “But in 2015 I was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area…I have spoken general about my experiences, but I’ve never spoke specifically on details, on dates or on the mission, and that was official.”

Peters hit back, saying that he had already inquired with the various intelligence agencies about any such trip and they came back with nothing. Peters told Mullin:

We want to know what the supposed classified work was. We have real questions about it. I asked the FBI yesterday. I said, ‘If someone had appeared in any classified document, any document, would that be in this report?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘I don’t see anything for Senator Mullen. Why is that?’ They said, ‘Nothing showed up.’ We queried the Department of State, the Department of Defense, other intel folks, so you’re in no classified document that the federal government has, according to the FBI, and yet you’re telling me you did all this classified work.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the Senate Homeland Committee chair, then urged Mullin to discuss the trip with the committee members in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF).

“You’ve now mentioned today that you have activities you’ve done, and so I think it would be easy, and I’m still willing to have the vote tomorrow, but I can cancel the vote tomorrow,” Paul said, threatening Mullin if he refused to go into the SCIF. Paul added that it “doesn’t sound like it’s a secret you’re too concerned about divulging.” Mullin eventually agreed to meet the whole committee in the SCIF to divulge the details.

Politico’s Kyle Cheney noted that Mullin’s claim of being on a classified House trip was particularly strange. “Mullin claimed that the House sent him on a classified trip that only four people knew about. When Paul and Peters pressed him on which agency classified it, it led to this exchange,” Cheney wrote on X, adding:

MULLIN: It wasn’t an agency. It was done here, well, in the House at the time.
PETERS: The House classified it?
MULLIN: I’m assuming.

“Except the House doesn’t have that power. All classification authority flows from the president/executive,” added Cheney.

Punchbowl’s Laura Weiss later reported on the aftermath of the SCIF meeting and received some clarity on the issue from Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) – who served with Mullin from Oklahoma.

Weiss reported in the afternoon that committee members are “starting to leave the SCIF, where they reconvened to discuss an official trip MULLIN took in 2016 that he says is classified. Became a point of contention in MULLIN’s nomination hearing for DHS this morning.” She added:

Sen. BLUMENTHAL says leaving that MULLIN was not more forthcoming in the SCIF & the situation is “weird.” Says it’s still a mystery why the info is classified & who classified it

“Some of his answers raise additional questions and all of them go to his credibility,” BLUMENTHAL says

MULLIN declines to comment to reporters leaving the SCIF

Sen. LANKFORD says the trip is being overblown

“This is a mountain out of a molehill issue”

LANKFORD says MULLIN is under a non-disclosure agreement related to the trip – rather than that it’s classified, which is how MULLIN described it. He adds it related to a whistleblower

Cheney later shared Lankford’s comment and offered his take on the confusion, “This makes a lot more sense, but raises the question of why Mullin kept describing it as some kind of classified venture.”

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