“Openly genderfluid” Sam Brinton, the MIT graduate who joined in the Joe Biden administration earlier this year as deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition within the U.S. Department of Energy, and was charged with a felony for being accused of stealing luggage belonging to a woman.
The incident is said to have taken place at the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport on September 16 after a woman who was on her way to New Orleans went to the baggage carousel, only to discover the navy blue Vera Bradley roller bag was missing. Per Alpha News:
“The Minneapolis St. Paul (MSP) International Airport was informed of a suitcase that was missing inside the baggage claims area on September 16. The victim, an adult female, said she arrived at MSP on an Delta plane from New Orleans and went to take her bag that was checked on the carousel seven.”
Airport records have confirmed that this navy blue Vera Bradley roller bag arrived at 4:40 p.m. but it was missing on the carousel. The law enforcement officials reviewed surveillance footage taken from the area of baggage claims, and saw Brinton remove the navy blue bag from carousel 7, according to an indictment.
The complaint states that Brinton removed the luggage tag from the bag, and put it in his handbag after which he “then left the area at a quick pace.” Brinton arrived at MSP Airport around 4:27 p.m. on an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C. However, he did not carry a bag and therefore had no reason to go to baggage claim according to the complaint.
The person who was the victim and estimated the bag's value at $2,325, proved to the police that the navy blue bag that Brinton carried in the surveillance footage actually was hers. Brinton then took an Uber into the InterContinental St. Paul Riverfront hotel, where he checked in using the blue backpack in accordance with the complaint. He went back to the airport on the 18th of September with the bag, which he carried as he left to Washington, DC.
On the 9th of October, officers asked Brinton about the bag, and the possibility that Brinton “took anything that did not belong” to him. Brinton said, “Not that I know of.”
“If I've taken an unsuitable bag I'm pleased to return it, however I do not have clothes for another person. This was my clothing that I found when opening the bag,” he told the police.
After the interview, two hours later, Brinton then allegedly called the officer who was investigating and confessed to not being “completely honest.” According to Brinton, he erroneously took the bag due to fatigue from his travels and “got nervous” upon realizing the bag was actually belonging to someone else upon getting to his hotel room. Uncertain of how to proceed, Brinton then allegedly told officers that he had put her clothes in the hotel's drawers and then took the bag home on his own to maintain his appearance.
Brinton has been accused of not returning the bag back to the woman, and police have said that no clothes were found in his hotel room. His first court appearance is scheduled for the 19th of December in Hennepin County.
In the years prior to being appointed to the Biden Administration, Brinton had a clear stance against conversion therapy and also taught “Kink 101” workshops on campus colleges, according to The National Pulse. In one particular class, Brinton wore a dress and sat over three people wearing leather masks for dogs. Brinton described this as an “pup play” fetish in an article from 2016.
“One of the hardest things about being a handler is that I've honestly had people ask, ‘Wait, you have sex with animals?'” Brinton spoke about the sexual fetish. “They believe it's abusive, that it's taking advantage of someone who may not be acting up to a level of human responsibility … The other misperception is that I have some really messed up background, like, did I have some horrible childhood trauma that made me like to have sex with animals?”
