President Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), employed a supervisor at his family plumbing business who illegally stored weapons and ammunition in an office safe in 2009, according to federal court records.
The employee, Timothy L. Saylor, was previously convicted of felonies, barring him from owning firearms. He said Mullin knew his criminal history but nonetheless allowed him to store the weapons at Mullin Plumbing in Oklahoma.
“Markwayne knew I was a felon,” Saylor said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Of course he knew. Because I told him.”
The incident became a controversy during Mullin’s first run for Congress in 2012. At the time, Mullin denied knowing about Saylor’s criminal history, telling the Tulsa World that he did not conduct a background check. Mullin said that was because Saylor had been an existing employee of a business purchased by Mullin Plumbing.
Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly provide a weapon to a felon. Mullin told authorities at the time that he gave Saylor guns “to clean.” Mullin was never charged, according to court records.
Mullin’s background and views have faced fresh scrutiny since last week, when Trump said he was nominating him to succeed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem at the end of the month. Mullin must be confirmed by his colleagues in the U.S. Senate to run the department, which includes the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, Customs and Border Protection, as well as the Secret Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Wednesday, “The Washington Post should not be giving oxygen to a disgruntled former employee from nearly 20 years ago.” She pointed to statements that Mullin’s congressional campaign released in 2012 from then-Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz and former U.S. attorney David O’Meilia, whose office charged Saylor, saying there was no indication that Mullin did anything inappropriate.
Glanz and O’Meilia did not respond to messages seeking comment. Glanz’s office was not involved in the Saylor case. The sheriff later resigned and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor of refusing to release information about the training of an officer who shot and killed an unarmed man in 2015.
A White House official declined to discuss the internal vetting process. Mullin’s office did not respond to questions for this article.
During Mullin’s 2012 congressional campaign, Saylor said, Mullin told him to keep quiet and let him handle any questions about the incident. He said Mullin spoke to him on the phone through a call that was patched through by another employee named Ray Turner. Turner said he did not remember.
Saylor’s attorney, Shannon McMurray, said she could not substantiate Saylor’s claim that Mullin knew about his history.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing for Mullin on March 18.
Mullin took over the plumbing business from his father in 1997 and grew it into one of the state’s largest plumbing services groups. He drew on his wealth to loan his first congressional campaign more than $250,000, according to federal campaign finance records.
At Mullin Plumbing in the city of Broken Arrow, outside Tulsa, Saylor said, he ran a division focused on commercial properties and new construction.
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 said Mullin let him make a gun range on his property in Coweta, Oklahoma, where he could shoot in private, sometimes along with Mullin or his sons.
“We would have a good time,” Saylor said.
Police searched Mullin Plumbing on Feb. 23, 2009, based on a tip from a confidential informant who worked there and alleged that Saylor kept a weapons cache at the office and had threatened co-workers, according to court records.
Prosecutors said Saylor initially told a police officer that the safe belonged to the business’s owner, and Mullin said it belonged to his father. Mullin provided a combination that didn’t open the safe, and he then said it wasn’t the safe he thought it was, according to court records.
Saylor had to be restrained while firefighters opened the safe, prosecutors said. Police said Mullin apologized for Saylor’s outburst, saying, according to court records, “I’ve never seen that side of him before.”
Police found “a large cache” of weapons and ammunition in his office. The weapons included a revolver reported stolen in North Carolina and the pistol belonging to Mullin, according to court records. Saylor eventually pleaded guilty to one charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. He served a two-year sentence.
Mullin allowed the officer to search Saylor’s company truck, where he found ammunition, empty shell casings and gun-cleaning tools, according to court records. Saylor told police that he had reloaded ammunition for Mullin, but Mullin denied that, according to prosecutors.
Mullin did, however, tell an officer that Saylor had often come to his house to shoot recreationally and that he gave Saylor guns “to clean,” including a semiautomatic pistol found in the safe, according to court records.
In an affidavit supporting Saylor’s defense, Mullin said he believed that the informant who tipped off police was a recently fired employee who threatened to extort money from him and had been “openly hostile” toward him and Saylor.
Mullin’s affidavit did not address whether he knew about Saylor’s criminal record. Saylor’s lawyer said in a 2009 court filing that Saylor had worked for Mullin Plumbing for about six years and that after the arrest, he and Mullin “agreed it would be best if he left the company.”
Todd Wuestewald, the police chief in Broken Arrow at that time, said he did not recall the Saylor investigation and was not directly involved in the case. He said it can be very difficult to prove that someone knowingly provided weapons and ammunition to felons.
“The key is ‘knowingly,’” said Wuestewald, who is also a retired associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. “The idea is to keep guns out of the hands of felons. You’re not supposed to do that.”
Aaron Schaffer and Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.
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