When President Trump sacked Kristi Noem as head of the Department of Homeland Security and nominated Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, many of us breathed a sigh of relief. If, like me, you were an early Noem supporter, you probably got increasingly queasy as Corey Lewandowski became advisor and...TMI! TMI!...rumored paramour. During Trump 1.0, Lewandowski was at Ground Zero of just about every sleazy act.
BACKGROUND:
(VIDEO) Corey Lewandowski Again Picks On Someone Smaller Than Himself – RedState
Corey Lewandowski's Jackassery Is the Best Possible Anti-Trump Weapon – RedState
Corey Lewandowski: Master of the Universe Or Overly Aggressive Twerp? – RedState
If you look at Noem and then at Lewandowski and say there is no freakin' way he was sleeping with her, keep in mind that he was "romantically associated" with Hope Hicks, who is clearly 25 numbers better looking. As they say, you gotta respect his game. Lewandowski was also linked to the backbiting and sabotaging of rivals within the administration, a defining characteristic of Trump's first administration. So when stories of contracts steered to favorite vendors and other tomfoolery began to leak out of DHS, it really wasn't the effort of investigating them because, in your heart, you knew they were true.
I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical of Mullin at first, but I've warmed up to him. My colleague Bob Hoge has quite a profile of the man; see Just Who Is Our Soon-to-Be New DHS Secretary? Markwayne Mullin Has a Heckuva Backstory – RedState. He dropped out of college to take over the family plumbing business and turned it into a multimillion-dollar company. Along the way, he acquired a 5-0 record as a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter. His being restrained from kicking the ass of a Teamster thug during a Senate hearing was just icing on the cake.
WATCH🚨: GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin Mullin challenges Teamsters boss, Okla., told Sean O'Brien, to fight at Senate hearing: 'Stand your butt up,’ pic.twitter.com/qflCIrU2fT
— Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) November 14, 2023
Anyway, now that Mullin has the DHS nomination, we can expect the hit pieces to roll, and The Washington Post did not disappoint: Homeland Security pick employed felon who illegally stored guns at work - The Washington Post.
Huh? That's it? That's what you've got?
Apparently, when Mullin Plumbing took over another company, he acquired an employee named Timothy L. Saylor. Saylor was a convicted felon, and that barred him from owning firearms. He said Mullin knew his criminal history but nonetheless allowed him to store the weapons at Mullin Plumbing in Oklahoma.
Saylor’s earlier convictions, all in California, include two 1995 felony convictions for possessing a loaded sawed-off shotgun and, separately, brandishing a weapon and threatening to kill someone inside a home whom he suspected of stealing from him, according to court records. His record also includes failing to appear, making obscene threats and assault with a chemical — arising from an incident in which he threw bleach at another inmate who defecated in the cell they shared.
Saylor claims Mullin knew he was a felon and still let him keep weapons he illegally owned in the company safe. Mullin says he didn't know and never conducted a background check of Saylor because he was already an employee.
In 2009, a "confidential informant" called the cops and claimed that Saylor kept a weapons cache at the office and had threatened co-workers. The police searched the safe and found a large amount of ammunition (define large) and two weapons. One was registered to Mullin, the other had been stolen in North Carolina. Saylor did two years for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Taken in its worst light, this is a case of Mullin cutting a guy a break and treating him with dignity, forgetting that no good deed goes unpunished. If he'd known of Saylor's record and decided he had enough value as an employee to retain him, he could easily have felt it wasn't his place to rat the guy out to the cops and that this could contribute to a troubled man coping with society. If he didn't give Saylor the weapon or if Saylor implied or told him he was borrowing it from someone else, he'd have even less reason to care. The most probable case is that Mullin did not know Saylor was a felon and they enjoyed shooting together.
Either way, I don't care. If the worst they have is that Mullin skirted the law to try to rehabilitate a man, I can live with that.
Mullin's confirmation hearing is on March 18. It would be a shock if something else doesn't come out before then, but as an opening shot, this is pathetic.
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