Markwayne Mullin replaces Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security
Markwayne Mullin will replace Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security as President Trump announces a major leadership change in Washington.
STILWELL, Okla. – In 2017, a company owned by then-U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin paid $99,000 for a half-acre vacant lot along a highway that runs through Stillwell, a small city in far eastern Oklahoma near Mullin’s hometown.
Marin’s family later built a two-story restaurant on the property, offering a menu of country comfort foods along with fresh baked goods and a coffee bar. However, the restaurant closed in 2024 after only four years of operation.
Marin quickly found a buyer. About a week after the restaurant closed, the Cherokee Nation purchased the entire property for $1.5 million. This was about $700,000 more than the property was appraised at the time.
It is unclear why the sale price was so much higher than the appraised value, even though it included a developed restaurant. But it represents one of the many ways Mr. Marin has rapidly increased his wealth since becoming a lawmaker in 2013. The land sale to the Cherokee Nation was one of several large financial gains for Marin that year, with Marin reporting he earned at least $9 million in 2024.
Mullin, who was recently nominated by President Donald Trump to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security, is likely to face questions about his financial transactions during his confirmation hearing, which begins Wednesday, March 18.
If confirmed, Mullin would leave his current position as Oklahoma’s next U.S. senator.
Mr Marin’s net worth has increased dramatically since joining the public service through a combination of stock trading, real estate investments and the sale of large sums of money, raising questions from ethics experts.
Donald Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said trading on the stock market while a lawmaker is in office creates a conflict of interest.
“Unlike federal judges and most executive branch officials, members of Congress cannot simply retreat from these types of divisive issues because doing so would deny them the representation of their constituents in Congress,” Sherman told The Oklahoman.
Markwayne Mullin’s net worth includes stocks, real estate
An analysis of Marin’s most recent annual financial information submitted to the U.S. Senate by The Oklahoman, part of the USA TODAY Network, shows assets held by Marin and his immediate family could be as high as $96.7 million and as low as $29.2 million.
A separate analysis of Marin’s net worth by analytics firm Quiver Quantitative suggests that Marin and his immediate family could be worth an estimated $66 million in 2026, based on financial disclosures and stock purchase reports.
This is a far cry from the assets he listed in his first financial disclosure in 2013, when he began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. That year, apart from his salary from working at his family’s plumbing company, he reported assets valued at approximately $3 million to $8 million, which primarily included the value of his plumbing business and his stock in the family’s ranch near Westville.
These financial reports do not require exact values, only ranges.
Over time, Marin built a diversified portfolio consisting of stocks in individual companies, investments in several mutual funds, and several real estate holdings in Oklahoma. Washington DC; Missouri; Florida and Louisiana. In total, he listed more than 180 assets in his most recent disclosure form filed in August 2025.
Much of his wealth comes from selling his plumbing business in 2021. Details of the transaction were not made public, but the New York Times reported that Marin moved between $25 million and $50 million into a cash management account on the same day as the sale.
How did Mr. Marin earn millions of dollars in 2024?
In 2024, Mr. Marin disclosed that he sold three assets each worth more than $1 million but less than $5 million.
One of its big assets is Rowan’s Restaurant, a family-owned restaurant in Stillwell, Oklahoma. In February of that year, a week after the restaurant served its last dinner, the Marin family sold the property to the Cherokee Nation for $1.5 million, according to Adair County property records.
One of Stilwell’s largest and newest commercial developments.
Marin is a Cherokee Nation. As a nation whose sovereignty is guaranteed by an act of Congress and supported in part by federal funds, the Cherokee Nation frequently lobbies in Washington, D.C., seeking representation in Congress in accordance with treaty provisions.
The tribe also frequently purchases property on its reservations in northeastern Oklahoma, turning much of it into community hubs such as wellness centers.
In 2023, the Cherokee Nation purchased a former grocery store building elsewhere in Stilwell, spending $448,000 for the land and 35-year-old building. The building’s appraised value at the time of sale was $454,360.
The pre-sale appraised value of Marin’s property was $802,612. The former restaurant now serves as the base for the Cherokee Nation’s senior nutrition program in Stilwell.
When asked for comment about the location and an explanation of how the $1.5 million purchase price was arrived at, the tribe’s public relations department sent a statement explaining the property’s value.
“The Cherokee Nation acquired a building located in the heart of Stilwell to serve as a gathering place to benefit senior citizens,” Cherokee Nation Communications wrote in an email to The Oklahoman. “This 6,000-square-foot building facility, formerly a restaurant, is equipped to serve as the tribe’s senior nutrition facility and opens in 2025.”
The acquisition comes at a time when Principal Chuck Hoskin Jr. boasted at Tribal Council that the tribe is spending $1.2 billion in capital investments to “create a generational impact on the Cherokee Nation.”
Mr. Hoskin praised Mr. Mullin’s appointment to the President’s Cabinet and praised his work on behalf of the Indian Nation. “We have confidence in Secretary Mullin’s ability to lead with historic responsibility and look forward to the positive, unifying impact his unique perspective will have on our nation,” Hoskin said in a statement.
Mullin did not respond to The Oklahoman’s request for comment for this article.
Overall, Marin, his wife and dependent children earned between $9 million and $28.7 million in 2024, the report said.
Marine stock trading comes under scrutiny
Marin has bought about $14.5 million worth of stock since 2023, according to tracking by Quiver Quantitative. During the same period, he sold approximately $9.5 million worth of stock.
Marin and his staff have repeatedly told reporters that he does not make individual stock trading decisions and instead uses independent third-party firms to manage portfolios on his behalf. That hasn’t stopped scrutiny of some of the deals reported to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.
In December, Marin bought shares in Chevron and Raytheon just days before the U.S. detained Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Raytheon is a major U.S. defense contractor and has significant missile and defense systems contracts with the Department of Defense. Chevron is one of the major private oil companies operating in Venezuela.
Trump said members of Congress were not informed of the attack before it happened, but those who follow geopolitics said he had built a large military presence in the Caribbean in the weeks leading up to the attack and knew there was potential for major disruption in Venezuela.
Sherman, president of CREW, an ethics watchdog group in Washington, D.C., said that if lawmakers choose to participate in stock transactions while in government, they should have processes in place to ensure full compliance with the law and should not “shift the blame” to third-party asset managers when there are questions.
“But I think the more important mandate, which the law has yet to catch up to, is that members of Congress may not buy, trade or own stocks and bonds and such personal assets,” Sherman said.
Marin has been criticized for being late in reporting the stock purchases. In 2025, reporting of seven stock purchases was delayed by more than two years.
In 2017, Marin faced questions about an investment in a little-known pharmaceutical company that was seeking FDA approval for a new drug. At the time, Mullin was a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee, which had “tremendous influence” over the FDA.
According to the latest report, Marin has bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in nine companies so far in 2026. These companies represent a variety of industries, including chip manufacturers, financial services, and providers of online schooling programs.
