From plumbing to guns: Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin faces scrutiny over employee who illegally stored weapons in office safe as he ascends toward Homeland Security post
Senator Markwayne Mullin, one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies and his personal choice to take over as Homeland Security Secretary, employed someone at his multimillion-dollar plumbing business who illegally stored weapons in an office safe, according to federal court records.
Timothy L. Saylor said Mullin knew that he had previously been convicted of felonies that barred him from owning firearms, but nonetheless allowed him to store the weapons and ammunition at Mullin Plumbing in Oklahoma, The Washington Post reported. Mullin, who later sold the business for tens of millions of dollars, said during his first run for Congress in 2012 that he did not know Saylor’s criminal history and had not conducted a background check.
“Markwayne knew I was a felon,” Saylor told the Post. “Of course he knew. Because I told him.”
It is a federal crime to knowingly provide a weapon to a convicted felon, the Post reported. And though Mullin told authorities at the time that he gave Saylor guns "to clean," Mullin was never charged.
Saylor told the Post that during the 2012 campaign, Mullin told him to stay quiet and let him field any questions about the incident at his plumbing company. Saylor also alleged that Mullin let him make a gun range on his property in Coweta, Oklahoma, where he was allowed to shoot in private, sometimes with Mullin himself.
The safe inside Mullins Plumbing contained a "large cache" of weapons and ammunition, including a pistol that belonged to Mullin(Image: AP)
“We would have a good time,” Saylor told the Post.
Before being hired by Mullin, Saylor had been twice convicted of possessing a loaded sawed-off shotgun, once of brandishing a weapon and threatening to kill someone, and once of assault with a chemical, the Post reported.
The safe inside Mullins Plumbing contained a "large cache" of weapons and ammunition, including a pistol that belonged to Mullin, court records showed. Mullin allowed police to search Saylor’s company truck, where they discovered ammunition, shell casings and tools for cleaning guns.
Saylor told officers that he had reloaded ammunition for Mullin, but Mullin denied the allegation, prosecutors said. Saylor eventually pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm and ammunition, serving a two-year sentence.
Neither Mullin, the Broken Arrow police chief at the time, the then-Tulsa County sheriff nor the U.S. attorney whose office charged Saylor responded to the Post’s requests for comments.
The allegations about Mullin come as the Oklahoma senator faces fresh attention after the ouster of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, which has already resulted in the resurfacing of old controversies and statements at odds with the Trump administration’s message.
Mullin last week appeared to criticize the ousted Noem and her handling of the department even as he claimed they were friends.
"My wife and I, we have been fortunate enough to purchase companies and grow companies, and everyday, there is something you can do better," he told reporters when asked about Noem’s volatile tenure. "I think there is an opportunity to build off successes, and there is also opportunities to build things that maybe didn’t go quite as planned."
Mullin made headlines last week when he referred to the joint U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran as a "war" despite attempts by the Trump administration to frame the military intervention in other terms(Image: Getty Images)
His comment followed a history of complaints against the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is part of DHS, and comes as lawmakers of both parties have lobbed blistering criticism against Noem for her policies that they say slowed down billions of dollars in disaster aid.
Critics said her policy of requiring that she personally approve agency expenditures of $100,000 or more lagged disaster reimbursements to states and even delayed emergency response. And Mullin himself expressed skepticism toward the agency, which the Trump administration has considered shrinking or even eliminating.
“If we have to wait on the federal government to respond, we’re going to be waiting for the rest of our life,” he told Fox Business in 2024, shortly after Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of North Carolina, Florida and other states. “It’s not FEMA that’s going to respond, it’s the local people that are going to respond, and we’re going to be fighting with FEMA to get reimbursed if they ever do reimburse."
His emergence into the national spotlight also resurfaced an incident from 2023 that nearly resulted in violence. Upon taking offense to comments from Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, during a hearing, Mullin stood up and challenged O’Brien to a physical fight.
Mullin also made headlines last week when he referred to the joint U.S.-Israeli attack against Iran as a "war" despite attempts by the Trump administration, which are still ongoing, to frame the military intervention in other terms. He faced further backlash from Republicans for discussing the "smell of war" on Fox News despite never having served in the military.
Though Trump has announced his preference for Mullin to take over the third-largest department in government that has responsibility for carrying out his hardline immigration agenda, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will have a confirmation hearing for Mullin on March 18.
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