If the key to success in any high-profile job is low expectations based on the poor performance of one’s predecessor, President Trump’s nominee for Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, is a lucky guy. Kristi Noem leaves DHS in shambles and her own once-bright political career on the ropes. She managed — through well-documented incompetence, corruption, self-glorification, and even alleged moral turpitude — to discredit herself and her agency, despite a close identification with Trump’s signature mass-deportation agenda. Now DHS is technically shut down, and it could definitely use a new image and lease on life. Could the relatively obscure Oklahoma senator provide it?

It’s hard to say. Mullin’s main credential is that Trump really likes him. But once upon a time, he really liked Noem as well. A plumbing contractor by trade before he entered politics, Mullin is probably best known for two things that have nothing to do with his senatorial duties: He is a certified member of the Cherokee Nation, making him the fifth........

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