Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) threatened to cancel a confirmation vote for Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), President Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security, after he refused to explain "classified work" that he had claimed to have done.
During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Mullin claimed that he did not have to divulge the classified work because of committee rules. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) noted that his instructions to Mullin required him to explain all of his work, regardless of classification status.
"My letter did not exclude official travel, and it also gave you explicit instructions in that letter for providing classified information, how we could do that, and do it in a way that protects that classified information," Peters said. "You didn't provide any of that."
The Democratic Senator observed that the FBI was also unaware of any classified work by Mullin.
"So you're in no classified document that the federal government has, according to the FBI, and yet you're telling me you did all this classified work," he explained. "I don't understand how that record happened."
For his part, Paul said he had agreed to Wednesday's hearing despite "qualms" about the speed at which it was called.
"I'm still willing to have the vote tomorrow, but I can cancel the vote tomorrow," he warned. "I'm still willing to have the vote, get this done, and get it over with. But I think that, just to make clear, and it doesn't sound like it's a secret you're too concerned about divulging."
After that, Mullin changed his tune on sharing some details about his work.
"I have no issue with that if you guys get cleared on it," the nominee insisted. "Because my understanding was, is there's only four people right in it, and it was a special program inside the House."
"That would be on you," Paul replied. "We're not gonna try to figure out who the four people are and whether we can be of approval to it. And if you're doing something that important, really, it probably ought to be revealed and discussed."
Paul was also skeptical of the House's ability to "classify" information.
"Which agency, which agency classified it?" he asked.
"It was, it wasn't an agency," Mullin said. "It was, it was done here, well, in the House at the time. The House classified it."
"We're just not really aware of how the House classifies things," Paul remarked.
"This started in 2015. It ended in mid, little late in 2016," Mullin followed up. "I have nothing to hide on this. This is too easy."