Scarcely had the midterm election dust settled before the Biden administration found itself in yet another humiliating scandal. Earlier this month, it was revealed that in September, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Waste Disposal Sam Brinton, a deeply disturbed biological man who claims to be "non-binary" and uses the pronouns "they/them/their," was spotted on surveillance video stealing a high-end woman's bag from the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport's baggage claim carousel.
A police investigation revealed that Brinton used the bag on at least two other flights. Brinton admitted that the bag was in his possession and that he disposed of its rightful owner's contents, but claimed he had been "confused" due to "exhaustion." On October 27, he was criminally charged with felony theft. The Department of Energy (DOE) placed him on administrative leave, but did not confirm whether it was paid or unpaid.
While Brinton awaited a December 19 court hearing, he reportedly indulged in his side hustle from top-secret government work involving the handling of nuclear materials: running sadomasochism workshops. Republican calls for his dismissal and the revocation of his security clearance were waved away by Democrats, who routinely credit even the flimsiest accusation of misconduct aimed at Republicans but insisted that Brinton was "innocent until proven guilty." DOE seized the occasion to tweet an "inclusive" message for "Transgender Day of Remembrance" celebrating the "light" of its "non-binary" employees, only one of whom—Sam Brinton—is in the public eye.
The mainstream media compliantly buried the story as Brinton's fate hung in the balance. Last week, however, it was revealed that Brinton's claimed "confusion" was not an isolated incident. A review of security footage captured in July at Las Vegas's Harry Reid International Airport showed Brinton lifting another woman's bag that did not belong to him. Brinton was easily recognizable in a distinctive T-shirt featuring a rainbow-colored nuclear symbol design, which he had also worn in photos posted on his Twitter account.
At the risk of paraphrasing Oscar Wilde, to lose one bag may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two bags looks like carelessness. Las Vegas police charged Brinton with felony grand larceny, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, in addition to his earlier criminal charge in Minnesota, which is punishable by a maximum of five years and a $10,000 fine.
On Monday, DOE stated without further comment that "Sam Brinton is no longer a DOE employee." Some reports suggest he was fired, but it is possible that he resigned.
The real question, of course, should be why such an individual served in a fairly high-level government post in the first place. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, made that very inquiry upon Brinton's appointment, when he asked DOE to describe its background check and security clearance procedures. He received no response. Nor did he receive any known response to a further inquiry that accompanied his demand for Brinton's dismissal after the first airport heist.
As radical gender ideology migrates from our failing colleges and universities into the corridors of power, "gender fluidity" has become so sacrosanct in our culture that no amount of patently bizarre personal behavior can disqualify many self-identifying "non-binary"/"gender fluid" people from any form of public trust—including, in Brinton's case, even top-secret nuclear matters.
To suggest anything to the contrary often invites accusations of bigotry, hatred, discrimination, and literal "violence." Consider the instructive parallel case of former Twitter executive Yoel Roth, who was in charge of content moderation that company files released by new owner Elon Musk reveal to have been highly censorious on political grounds. When Musk tweeted an excerpt from Roth's University of Pennsylvania doctoral dissertation that appeared to suggest minors should have access to sexual hookup apps, it was Musk who was widely excoriated as a harasser and homophobe, while Roth is being portrayed as an innocent victim. And on a policy level, when Florida earlier this year outlawed the teaching of any form of sexuality to schoolchildren under the age of eight, radical gender ideologues denounced the measure as an assault on "free speech."
Even Barrasso's letters about Brinton to DOE covered for radical gender ideology by referring to him with a "they" pronoun. Barrasso's linguistic surrender to wokeism may explain why his senatorial queries received no response from the very Swamp bureaucrats who "vetted" a biological man who wears dresses and teaches sadomasochism to run federal nuclear waste disposal. Perhaps a new generation of conservatives—or even just those with sheer common sense—will stop fearing the woke mob and make more reasonable executive branch appointments, moving forward.
Paul du Quenoy is president of the Palm Beach Freedom Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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