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DHS Nominee Quizzed In Secret Session Over Bizarre 'Classified Mission' Claims

Nominated to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) was caught in a "discrepancy" in his biography on Wednesday, which left lawmakers scratching their heads during his confirmation hearing. The decision was ultimately to go to a classified setting, where Mullin said he could answer their questions about his "special assignment," which he told the Senate he couldn't talk about.

Mullin's tale dates back to the January 6 attack, when he told C-SPAN he was able to spring into action because “I’ve been in those situations before overseas." He claimed, “I recognized that there was an issue really quick.” When asked for specifics, he refused to go into it.More recently, Mullin described the “smell of war.”

“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 fill it in your nostrils and hear it, it’s something that you’ll never forget, and it’s ugly,” he said.

Mullin has never been to war nor has he been in any kind of military service. He was a UFC wrestler. As The New Republic's Edith Olmsted noted Wednesday, his comments have raised questions about "stolen valor."

Mullin was forced into a secure setting where the senators could discuss classified matters about what he said was a secret. After leaving, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who nominated Mullin officially, said that what Mullin called "classified" was actually more of a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). Mullin was never recruited by any government agency for any overseas mission.

"There’s still a lot of unanswered questions about what 'special missions' Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) was engaged in such that he could not disclose to the committee in a public setting," wrote Politico's Homeland Security reporter Eric Bazail-Eimil. Lankford, he said, made it clear the issue is not classified.

"Democrats are confused," Bazail-Eimil said. "Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said it was a 'weird' situation and said he has more questions."

"Lankford also told us the trip was related to a follow up on a whistleblower. But Mullin said earlier he received SERE training," wrote Courthouse News Congress reporter Benjamin S. Weiss. SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training, according to the U.S. Air Force.

Weiss recalled that Mullin also told the Senators he would only talk to people in the classified setting with "top secret" or "SCI clearance." What he did, Lankford said, was under an NDA.

"Things look even less clear," Weiss assessed.Mullin backed himself into a corner once Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) began questioning him on which agency classified his trips. Mullin answered that the House did, but the House doesn't have that power.

NBC News reporter Melanie Zanona reported that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was in the hearing audience to support Mullin in his nomination.

She relayed that McCarthy said Mullin's claims about being approved to take a classified trip to an undisclosed location in 2016 as a House member are '100% true.'"

McCarthy further said he checked with then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) at the time and "former staff." Mullin testified that only four people in the House knew about the mystery mission.Weiss noted that after the classified questioning, Lankford tried to dismiss the matter about the SERE training as a “mountain and molehill” situation. When pressed on it, however, Lankford's account contradicted Mullins', and he refused to go into more details discussed in the classified setting.

“If you knew more of the story, which is small, in this point, then it would make more sense, on it," said Lankford, according to Weiss.

Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney said that the discrepancy between top secret classified information and an NDA "makes a lot more sense, but raises the question of why Mullin kept describing it as some kind of classified venture."

"Whether Trump’s DHS pick gets confirmed before 3/31 could come down to whether Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has a bone to pick with Mullin over comments Mullin made about the 2017 assault against Paul, will proceed with tomorrow’s markup as planned," wrote Bazail-Eimil on X.

The Washington Post reported ahead of the hearing that Mullin has been telling this story for at least five years. The story is one that "most laymen would assume meant he served in foreign battle," wrote the Post's congressional reporter Paul Kane.

David J. Bier, the Cato Institute's director of immigration studies, noted that while in her role, Secretary Kristi Noem's "biggest problems were that she and her staff were habitually dishonest, deceptive, and unaccountable. If you want to see how Sen. Mullin will be exactly the same, watch this 8-second exchange: Dishonest. Evasive. No accountability."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Departing DHS Spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin Leaves A Stain Of 'Heinous Lies'

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, often named as one of Donald Trump's most loyal defenders, is leaving her office later this month, with an analysis from The Bulwark finding that she leaves behind a pattern of "heinous lies" made in the face of "horrifying tragedies."

McLaughlin is set to leave her position on February 27, with various reports noting that her exit comes as her boss, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, is facing increasingly bipartisan heat over her own performance. The DHS flack had reportedly been plotting her departure around the end of last year, but delayed it after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers.

It was on the subject of those recent deaths that McLaughlin shared the first two major lies highlighted by The Bulwark. During media appearances, she perpetuated the claims from her superiors, including controversial Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the Good had been involved in "domestic terrorism" and that Pretti, who had been lawfully carrying a gun right before his death, intended to "massacre law enforcement." The Bulwark noted that, unlike her bosses, McLaughlin did not back away from these unfounded claims.

"Although McLaughlin helped build this false and slanderous narrative that even hardliners like Miller have abandoned, she herself has refused to renounce her office’s extreme—and baseless—claims about Pretti," The Bulwark's analysis detailed, later adding, "And just as in the case of the Pretti killing, McLaughlin refused to give up her lies. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked her about the administration’s repeated characterization of Renee Good as a domestic terrorist, calling it 'outrageous,' McLaughlin doubled down, saying, 'It was an act of domestic terrorism. In no way is that outrageous.'”

McLaughlin also asserted that ICE agents were not restraining people using zip ties, which she called a "disgusting smear," wvwn though photos later emerged from an FBI-led operation in Idaho showing a teenage American citizen restrained with them. The outlet noted that, on this count, there is the possibility that McLaughlin was correct in a way, as the zip ties could have been administered by FBI agents or local law enforcement officers.

"But even if children were being zip-tied by FBI agents or local law enforcement officers or some other DHS personnel instead of ICE during this particular raid, it’s not as though they are being spared from the cruelty of the administration’s mass deportation efforts," the analysis argued.

The Bulwark further highlighted McLaughlin's claims that Trump's mass deportation agenda was only targeting "the worst of the worst," and that DHS was making sure to use "U.S. taxpayer dollars well." The former claim, often invoked by Trump as well to defend his plans, has been consistently rebuked by reports about the many non-criminal immigrants being taken by ICE. As of October, one estimate found that 73 percent of ICE detainees had no criminal record at all, and only 8 percent had a history of committing violent crime.

The latter claim about spending came during an interview about DHS painting Trump's prized border wall black, to make it hotter to the touch for those trying to climb it.

"That makes a lot of sense—so long as you completely discount the existence of gloves, ladders, and the nighttime," The Bulwark noted, later adding, "If this is what responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars looks like, what would irresponsible stewardship entail?"

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Why Donald Trump Is Finally Waving A White Flag In Minnesota

After weeks of vicious rhetoric aimed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, after cheering on some of the most aggressive interior immigration enforcement the country has seen in decades, Donald Trump suddenly wants everyone to know he had a “very good call” with the Democratic governor on Monday and that they are on a “similar wavelength.” He even emphasized how “respectful” Walz was, a word Trump rarely uses for Democrats unless there’s a reason.

And there is a reason.

In the wake of a Border Patrol agent’s Saturday murder of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, the politics around the president’s chaotic and cruel immigration agenda have gone south fast—and Trump knows it.

Minnesota has become the clearest example yet of what happens when maximalist immigration rhetoric collides with reality. Two U.S. citizens are dead following encounters with federal immigration agents in the North Star State, and the administration didn’t just spin what happened—it went full George Orwell and told us not to believe our own eyes.

This isn’t political disagreement or ambiguity: This is Trump’s gestapo goons killing Americans and then trying to launder those murders through a propaganda-filled narrative—one that flies in the face of what heroic Minneapolis citizens captured on video at the literal risk of their lives.

Trump, of course, helped create this moment. Over the past several weeks he has personally targeted Walz, calling him “crooked,” accusing him of election interference, fraud, coddling criminals, and standing in the way of federal enforcement. Minnesota was held up as a symbol of Democratic lawlessness, proof that only Trump and the use of brute federal force could restore order.

Republican acolytes went even further, rushing to defend Pretti’s execution before basic facts were known and insisting that any questioning of Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics amounted to domestic terrorism—a line that out-of-control and cowardly masked ICE agents themselves have embraced:

Polling on ICE has deteriorated sharply as horrific footage and first-hand accounts circulate. Support for aggressive interior immigration enforcement drops once it is no longer abstract—once it involves names, faces, and video. Trump’s political instincts may be erratic, but they are not nonexistent. He can read a trend line. He can feel a backlash bubbling.

Two weeks ago, support for abolishing ICE was already climbing, with a record share of Americans backing the idea of getting rid of Trump’s private militia. Now the latest YouGov data shows that support has reached 46 percent, outpacing opposition at 41 percent.

As you’d expect, Republicans remain far less inclined to back abolition than Democrats or independents, but the shift within the GOP is notable: Two weeks ago, opposition among Republicans sat at 79 percent, with only 14 percent in favor. In the most recent poll, those numbers are now 73–19—a significant 11-point shift in a short amount of time.

Furthermore, there were new cracks in Trump’s own party, as not everyone was happy to defend the indefensible. It was easy to cynically roll one’s eyes at the handful of Republicans breaking ranks, convinced they’d be brought back in line with the mere threat of a nasty tweet.

And for Trump and his party, cruelty has always been acceptable. It was acceptable to abuse and deport Black and brown people. It was acceptable to kidnap brown children. It was acceptable to lock up Native Americans. It was even acceptable to murder a gay woman.

But this time they crossed a line they couldn’t spin away. They killed a man.

Not just a man, but a white man. Not just a white man, but one who worked as an ICU nurse, caring for veterans. Not just a VA worker, but a gun owner.

Alex Pretti didn’t fit the caricature. He looked like one of them. And that made demonization harder for Trump and his minions, and the backlash unavoidable.

Hence, the off-ramp.

Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have “touched” and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Trump’s Truth Social post reads less like a victory lap than a damage-control memo. He suddenly wants coordination. He suddenly wants to suggest that Minnesota officials are partners, not enemies.

Sending Trump border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota is framed not as a crackdown, but as cooperation. Trump even suggests he and Walz share the same goal. Walz is no longer crooked. They both want to “make it better.”

This is not strength. It is retreat.

Nothing substantive has changed on the ground. What has changed is the politics. The White House understands that “law and order” stops working when voters see chaos, destruction, and murder caused by the federal government itself.

There is nothing comforting about masked agents in civilian clothes, without badges or body cams, demanding to see people’s papers. It’s a dystopian nightmare, and people aren’t having it.

Walz has played it cool, even activating the Minnesota National Guard—clearly marked in orange vests—to stand guard and hand out refreshments to protesters.

That is what actually providing safety and security to a community looks like—and it only happened because the Supreme Court stripped Trump of the power to turn the National Guard into his personal riot squad. The contrast couldn’t be clearer: a Democratic governor using the Guard to deescalate and protect, versus Trump’s earlier attempts to use it to intimidate and provoke. Trump has to see the optics are brutal for him.

As a result, Trump, who thrives on dominance displays, is now publicly flattering a Democratic governor he was attacking days earlier. That tells you everything you need to know.

He, his party, and his goons have gone too far. He’s now looking for a way out.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Shame: How The 'Pro-Life' Trump Regime Brutally Abuses Pregnant Migrants

Absorbing the news about the brutal treatment of detainees, to say nothing of the outright murder of "suspected" drug runners in the Caribbean, I think back to a conversation I had in February of this year. My interlocutor was a Trump voter who had just had a friendly encounter with an African immigrant striver — the kind who came from poverty and had started a successful business here.

I recall saying, "I hope he has his documents in order."

The Trump voter scoffed: "They're not going after people like him. They're only going after the criminals."

Eleven months later, that naive faith has been smashed. Not his — mine. I have no idea how that person feels about the Trump administration now, but when I advised in February that they were going to cast a wide net for deportations, I had no idea how bad it would be. This is not just a matter of aggressive deportation. The things that are being done by our government to our fellow human beings are monstrous.

The testimony of the Venezuelans who were deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador is harrowing. Snatched from workplaces or homes on mere suspicion of being criminals — supposedly members of the Tren de Aragua gang — 252 men were bundled onto planes and flown to a prison known for torture. There, courtesy of a heinous bargain between Trump and Nayib Bukele, the dictator of El Salvador, they were "trampled, kicked ... forced to kneel for hours," as well as waterboarded, forced to sleep on mesh metal bunks, shot with rubber bullets, forced into stress positions (including the "crane" in which their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs and then lifted to put pressure on the shoulders and back) and sexually assaulted. At least one attempted suicide. Their accounts are available now only because El Salvador arranged a prisoner exchange with Venezuela in July.

Copious reporting has since demonstrated that only a fraction of those deported had criminal records in the United States and most of those were for relatively minor offenses such as shoplifting, possession of drug paraphernalia or traffic violations. Only six had convictions for violent crimes.

Again and again, Trump administration goons have insisted that they are deporting only the "worst of the worst ... rapists, savages, monsters." They have even — and this is one of the most vile aspects of this government — encouraged their base to revel in the misery of their victims by releasing videos lovingly dwelling on images of people being bound and frog-marched toward the planes. The videos are titled "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight."

Those enjoying what they imagine is righteous pleasure at the abuse of the "worst of the worst" might want to consider the testimony of Physicians for Human Rights or the Women's Refugee Commission, both of which have reported on the treatment of a group that the Trump administration apparently considers a dire threat: pregnant, nursing and postpartum women.

Melanie Nezer, vice president for advocacy and external relations at the Women's Refugee Commission, described the conditions that hundreds of these women are facing in U.S. detention centers. Pregnant women and nursing mothers are grabbed from their cars or workplaces by masked agents, hustled into buses or cars and whisked to overcrowded centers. In one Louisiana facility, according to a Senate report, at least 14 pregnant women were visible during the staff's visit. A woman who was four months pregnant and experiencing bleeding had not been seen by a doctor for months. Another had a miscarriage and was deported while still bleeding.

Nezer described pregnant women being forced into overcrowded detention facilities with inadequate sanitary facilities, only frozen burritos or potato chips to eat, lack of clean drinking water (except by purchase) and no medical care or medicines. Some pregnant women were sleeping on concrete floors. The WRC spoke to mothers who had been deported to Honduras. Several nursing mothers had seen their milk dry up due to poor nutrition while they were held in detention in the United States. A woman who was four months pregnant was denied medication for gestational diabetes.

Among these dangerous criminals that the Trump administration is devoting huge resources to detaining and deporting were a mother arrested as she was on her way to pick up her special-needs child from school, a mother separated from her 2-month-old baby, the mother of a five-year-old whose husband is a U.S. citizen and hundreds of others (though exact numbers are impossible to obtain due to government noncooperation).

Among those Nezer interviewed in Honduras were housecleaners, restaurant workers and stay-at-home moms. All of them were working, and quite a few had open asylum cases pending. Many were frantic about the children they'd been forced to leave behind in the United States. While they had phones with them, many did not have chargers and had no way of contacting their families, far less lawyers. As Nezer told me: "Before this year, detaining pregnant women was the rare exception, and there were safeguards. Now it happens all the time and conditions are beyond inhumane."

Do you feel safer now? I feel deeply ashamed.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

DHS Nominee Quizzed In Secret Session Over Bizarre 'Classified Mission' Claims

Departing DHS Spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin Leaves A Stain Of 'Heinous Lies'

Shame: How The 'Pro-Life' Trump Regime Brutally Abuses Pregnant Migrants

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