Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin would not confirm that the department he leads would comply with court orders, after a senator asked him whether the agency was committed to doing so.
The comments, made in an almost two-hour-long hearing Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, were made in a heated exchange between Mullin and Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut and the ranking member of the subcommittee.
Murphy asked Mullin whether he would ensure the Department of Homeland Security complies with court orders, pointing to a Minnesota judge’s January ruling that stated the department had failed to follow nearly 100 orders. In response, Mullin said his department would “never break the Constitution” or break the law, but did not explicitly commit to complying with court rulings.