- In 2015, Sen. Markwayne Mullin went to Israel along with several colleagues and their spouses.
- Two people on the trip said he picked the noses of sleeping members and their spouses on the bus.
- “It was just middle school,” one trip participant said.
The wife of a former Republican congressman said Sen. Markwayne Mullin put his fingers in the noses of sleeping congressional spouses for photo ops on a trip to Israel.
Kappy Trott, the wife of former Rep. David Trott, described the story to Politico on Friday. She said the event occurred amidst a trip to Israel in 2015 with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee alongside nearly 40 members of Congress and some of their spouses.
Once the group landed in Israel, following a laborious travel schedule, she told the publication they immediately jumped onto buses headed for a kibbutz for a demonstration of the country’s Iron Dome defense system.
Exhausted already, she said, many of the spouses of the US legislators on the trip took the bus ride as an opportunity to catch up on sleep.
Mullin, then a member of the House at the time, reportedly had other plans.
Trott said she and her husband personally witnessed the Oklahoma legislator walk “up and down” the bus and stick his finger in the noses of several dozed-off passengers.
“This idiot starts walking up and down the bus with his camera and anyone who fell asleep, he would put his finger in their nose and take a picture,” she said.
There was a mixture of anger and laughter, but she said she personally didn’t think it was appropriate.
“It was just middle school.”
Representatives from Mullin’s office did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
The story from the eight-year-old trip comes days after Mullin tried to fight the president of the Teamsters labor union during a Senate hearing only to be stopped by 82-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders.
He’s since gone on a press tour about the incident, telling one podcast he’s not afraid of biting his opponents during a fight.
“I’ll do anything, I mean, I’m not above it,” he said. “And I don’t care where I bite, by the way, it’s just going to be a bite.”
Mullin’s also used the publicity to fundraise, as well.
