Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin, faced stolen valor accusations at his March 18, 2026 confirmation hearing over remarks implying he had seen combat. On March 2, talking about the Iran war on Fox News, Mullin said, “War is ugly, it smells bad, and if anybody's ever been there, and been able to smell the war that's happened around you and taste it and feel it in your nostrils and hear it, it's something that you'll never forget and it's ugly.” Mullin has no history of U.S. military service; he is a businessman and a former professional MMA fighter.
The next day, on a podcast, Mullin said he did “special assignments outside of DOD” but “never wore the uniform or the flag.” At the hearing, Sen. Gary Peters asked, “So where did you smell war, sir?” Mullin said his answer would be classified. Peters said he had asked the FBI whether classified activity would show up in the records it compiled on Mullin, and that the bureau told him “nothing showed up.” He added, “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.”
After a closed-door session, Mullin's fellow Oklahoma Republican, Sen. James Lankford, told reporters the trip was related to a whistleblower and called the controversy a “mountain-molehill situation,” but he also undercut Mullin's framing: “I would use more the term of non-disclosure than classified, but I get those are two different things. I think even Markwayne wasn't careful in trying to be able to articulate between the two.”
Committee chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) opposed Mullin, asking whether “someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.” The committee advanced Mullin 8-7, with Democrat John Fetterman casting the deciding vote, and the Senate confirmed him 54-45 on March 23.
Correction (October 14, 2026): This entry previously said Sen. James Lankford “debunked” Mullin's claims and quoted him describing “a whistleblower issue that happened to be overseas”; that quotation could not be confirmed, and the available reporting shows Lankford defending Mullin while saying he would call the trip “non-disclosure” rather than classified. It said the FBI “found no paperwork” for Mullin's claimed classified work; the claim now reflects Peters' account of what the FBI told him. Peters' question has been corrected to his exact words, and a keyFact that said PolitiFact found the remark “ambiguous and misleading” now reflects what PolitiFact reported: that critics accused Mullin of misleading people about his career. Citations to Fox News, PolitiFact, New Republic, Daily Caller and The Hill articles that do not exist were removed.