According to media accounts, a senior nuclear waste officer at the Department of Energy was fired after being implicated in a series of suitcase thefts. To give everyone an update, Sam Brinton has left the Department of Energy. A representative for the DOE said on Monday to the Daily Beast, “By law, the Department of Energy cannot comment further on personnel concerns.”
Reports claim that the 35-year-old deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy was fired by the Biden administration after being accused of stealing a woman’s suitcase from the Minneapolis airport in September and a second woman’s bag from the Las Vegas airport in July.
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After being assigned to his previous position in June, Brinton was allegedly recorded on surveillance cameras at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas stealing a $320 suitcase containing more than $3,500 worth of jewelry, clothing, and makeup from the baggage claim area.
According to the arrest warrant issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Brinton was “a white male adult wearing a white T-shirt with a large rainbow-colored atomic nuclear symbol design,” despite the fact that Brinton uses they/them pronouns and does not identify exclusively as either male or female.
Brinton is suspected of stealing a Vera Bradley suitcase containing things worth $2,325 from the baggage claim area of the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport and is being charged with felony grand larceny in connection with the theft from Las Vegas.
After the theft allegation in Minneapolis, the nuclear waste official was placed on leave from the agency.
Last week, a group of Republican representatives in the House, led by Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde, asked Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to dismiss Brinton from her position.
Clyde and 15 other Republicans sent a letter to the secretary requesting Sam Brinton’s resignation and urging him to put party politics aside and pick only the most competent and motivated persons to impact America’s energy sector.
In June, the Department of Education recognized Brinton as a “well-known supporter LGBTQ adolescents.” The Department of Education noted that “Sam is also a well-known advocate for LGBTQ students and worked to achieve protections against the hazardous and discredited practice of conversion therapy in more than half of the country.”
Brinton could spend as little as five years in prison for the crime in Minnesota, and as long as ten years for the heist in Las Vegas.
