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Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination for Homeland Security Secretary is not a particularly controversial one, as Trump appointments go. He’s spent a dozen years in the House and Senate, he gets along well with his Republican (and many Democratic) colleagues, and most importantly, everyone will be glad to see Secretary Kristi Noem go.

The issue for Mullin is that there’s one Republican colleague he absolutely does not get along with, and with whom the feeling is mutual. It’s a senator whom Mullin recently called a “freaking snake.” Mullin also said he understood why that senator’s neighbor “did what he did”—beat him to a pulp—in a 2017 assault. That senator is Rand Paul, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which confirms DHS nominees.

During Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing into Mullin’s nomination, bygones would not be bygones. It didn’t take long to recognize that the core of the hearing would be an honor dispute between two strong-willed men.

Paul opened the hearing by describing his attack in rich detail: The six broken ribs, the damaged lung, the infections and pneumonias, the coughing of blood, the chest tubes.

“Tell the world why you believe I deserved to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken, and a damaged lung,” Paul addressed the nominee. “Tell it to my face why you think I deserved it. And while you’re at it, explain to the American public why they should trust a man with anger issues to set the proper example for ICE and Border Patrol agents.”

A hearing like this, in which the nominee has recently joked about an assault on the committee chairman, is a rarity. But the opportunity was nevertheless there for a sort of staged closure:........

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