WASHINGTON – At a confirmation hearing focused mostly on immigration enforcement, Sen. Ruben Gallego pressed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security over Trump’s ongoing effort to discredit his 2020 defeat in Arizona.
“No one in the Department of Homeland Security should be used to investigate an election conspiracy,” the Arizona Democrat told the nominee, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, at Wednesday’s hearing. “I really urge you just to end the investigation.”
Mullin, who tried to overturn the election as a House member, didn’t directly challenge Gallego’s statement but said he sees “an opportunity to look at 2020” to improve trust in future elections.
At a separate hearing with the nation’s spy chiefs, Arizona’s other Democratic senator, Mark Kelly, criticized the U.S. attack on Iran. “This has created one of the largest ever supply shocks” to global oil markets, he said.
“But not everybody is losing,” he said, referring to Trump’s decision to loosen sanctions on Russian oil to ease shortages and blunt price hikes.
Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security on March 5 after uproar over the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during protests against aggressive immigration enforcement.
The department includes the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Secret Service, Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration, with a budget of $63.6 billion and more than 260,000 employees.
Democratic senators mostly focused on ICE and the stalemate over DHS funding that has left workers without paychecks for over a month. Gallego used his time questioning Mullin to attack Trump’s ongoing claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
Earlier this month, the FBI obtained records from a partisan audit of the 2020 balloting in Maricopa County ordered by the Republican state Senate. The audit, demanded by Arizona Republicans, confirmed the accuracy of reported vote tallies and dispelled claims of fraud.
The FBI took more than three dozen hard drives and servers.
Official election results show President Joe Biden won Arizona by about 11,000 votes.
Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of DHS that usually focuses on trafficking of drugs and migrants, has also been probing the 2020 election.
“There’s no reason why we need to go back to 2020,” Gallego told Mullin. “There certainly isn’t any reason why we should be using highly trained professionals” to pursue “conspiracy theories … instead of investigating child sex trafficking, child abusers, drug traffickers.”
Despite repeated audits and certifications confirming the results, Trump and several Republican lawmakers continue to assert that the Arizona election was marred by fraud and miscounted votes.
As Trump fought to overturn his defeat in 2020, Mullin, then a House member, was among his allies who echoed unsubstantiated claims about widespread fraud.
“I truly feel like the Democrat machine is stealing this election from the American people,” he posted on X days after the election. He was one of 147 members of Congress to vote to overturn the election.
Democrats pressed him on that during Wednesday’s confirmation hearing.
“Who won the 2020 election?” Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan asked.
“We know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office,” Mullin responded.
Doubts about the 2020 election remain among Trump’s MAGA base, and he and Republican allies in Congress have been promoting the SAVE America Act, which the Senate has debated this week.
The bill, which has already passed the House, would tighten voting rules by requiring proof of U.S. citizenship such as a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Senate rules require 60 of 100 votes, and Republicans control only 53 votes.
Last week, Trump snapped at a reporter who asked why the FBI sought a subpoena for records from Maricopa County.
“Your own attorney general in 2020 said that there was no measurable voter fraud,” the reporter said.
“Oh, really? You don’t think it was rigged?” Trump said. “I think it was rigged.”
In response, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes called on Trump to “stop chasing lies.”
Last year, Trump pardoned 11 “fake electors” in Arizona who had been indicted for signing paperwork that falsely claimed he had won the state’s electoral votes. The group included state Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, and former Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale.
Mullin wouldn’t say whether he would break from Trump if asked to do something illegal, but assured senators he will work within the confines of the law and the Constitution.
“I want to make sure if you’re there, you’re in charge, not Stephen Miller,” Gallego said, referring to the deputy White House chief of staff who designed Trump’s mass deportation policy.
“I will still be talking to the president on a regular basis,” Mullin said.
In another hearing, the Intelligence Committee was being briefed on the war with Iran by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Kelly pressed Gabbard about her X post the previous day in which she said that “after carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat.”
“I think the country deserves to know what the information was,” Kelly told Gabbard.
Gabbard sidestepped Kelly’s question about whether she was briefed on the likelihood that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which 20% of global oil supplies are shipped.
There “continues to be analysis” of the war and the status of the strait, she said.
Kelly also pressed Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe about an email solicitation from Trump’s campaign committee, offering donors access to the “National Security Briefing Membership.”
“As a National Security Briefing Member, you’ll receive my private national security briefings, unfiltered updates on the threats facing America,” the email says. “You’ll get the inside scoop DIRECT from me.”
“Do you think … supporters of the president should be able to pay and receive his private national security briefings?” Kelly asked, holding a printout of the email.
“I don’t know what that document is,” Ratcliffe said.
“I’m not familiar with that document,” Gabbard said.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
