Sam Brinton, the disgraced “genderfluid” baggage thief who once served as the Biden administration’s top nuclear waste disposal expert, was on taxpayer business when he stole a woman’s suitcase in Las Vegas, records show.
Department of Energy expense reports show that Brinton, who uses “they/them” pronouns, was on a taxpayer-funded business trip when he swiped luggage with contents worth $3,670 in plain view of security cameras at the Harry Reid International Airport on July 6, 2022, according to records obtained by the Functional Government Initiative watchdog group and shared with the Washington Free Beacon. The records show Brinton had traveled to Las Vegas to visit the Nevada National Security Site, a facility tasked with maintaining and modernizing America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Brinton’s visit to the site came just 18 days after he became President Joe Biden’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition at the Department of Energy. The reasons behind Brinton’s visit to Las Vegas are unclear. He departed the city three days later, on July 9. The total cost of Brinton’s trip was $1,951.50.
The former government official’s Las Vegas luggage heist came at the height of his budding criminal career. He would later steal another woman’s suitcase, with contents worth $2,325, from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on Sept. 16.
That theft marked Brinton’s downfall. Minnesota authorities in October charged Brinton with felony theft, and in December the disgraced official was charged in the Las Vegas theft.
“It’s outrageous that tax dollars transported Brinton to and from the scene of a crime, putting the American public unwittingly at the wheel of the getaway car,” Functional Government Initiative spokesman Peter McGinnis told Fox News, which first reported the records. “Senior officials committing petty crime while on the clock is a clear indication that something is dysfunctional in the personnel procedures.”
Brinton narrowly escaped prison time in both cases. He was ordered in April to pay $3,671 to the woman whose suitcase he stole from the Harry Reid International Airport. Also in April, a Minnesota court ordered Brinton to undergo a mental health evaluation, enter an adult diversion program, and write a letter to the victim of his Minneapolis-St. Paul heist.
The Department of Energy in December dismissed Brinton from his six-figure post as deputy assistant energy secretary.
The extent of Brinton’s cross-country crime spree may yet be unknown.
The disgraced former Biden administration official was charged in May in connection to a third heist, this time of a Tanzanian fashion designer’s baggage. The arrest came after the designer, Asya Khamsin, posted tweets that show Brinton wearing her custom outfit and jewelry from a bag she lost at a Washington, D.C., airport in 2018.
Original Article: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/taxpayer-funded-brinton-theft/
