DOE Official Allegedly Steals Suitcase
There’s something about this particular official that the right wing press has decided to focus on, and it’s not their shoe size or the breed of dog they own or when they last had a haircut.
by Evan Urquhart
Let’s stipulate up top that stealing suitcases is wrong. Stealing particularly fancy suitcases worth over $2K is… well… it’s either even more or somewhat less wrong, depending on your perspective vis a vis the rich and whether it’s funny or horrible to propose eating them.
I myself have never stolen a suitcase. I’ve also never owned a suitcase worth $100, much less $2-freaking-K, apropos of nothing.
Sam Brinton, head of spent nuclear fuel management for the Department of Energy, is a Biden official who has both possessed and used such a suitcase, but never strictly speaking owned such a suitcase any more than I did. They (allegedly) stole the fancy suitcase from the airport, dumped the clothes contained therein in their hotel room, and proceeded to use it repeatedly for their own posessions. If it’s true they did this on purpose, it was wrong. Minor theft is wrong, even the theft of very silly things. The person who owned the suitcase probably had a really bad day, maybe even a bad business trip or bad vacation because of it. It’s wrong to put someone through the stress of losing their incredibly fancy designer suitcase for no reason.
All this has been covered in the mainstream press, but right wing writers have found a special angle: Brinton’s gender identity. For example, the right wing tabloid New York Post and FOX News both put Brinton’s non-binary identity in their headline (as did other right wing outlets).
Non-binary people, like cisgender people and binary trans people, are entirely capable of committing crimes, including silly ones. Holders of public office, whether appointed or elected, are capable of almost unending levels of tomfoolery and shenanigans, some legal and some not, not to mention very serious crimes such as the sexual assault of children.
To the mainstream press, Brinton’s gender identity is one fact about them which is reported along with the story. To the right wing press, however, their gender identity is an opportunity to smear all trans people with the suggestion that we’re all guilty by association of the theft of a ludicrously expensive designer suitcase.
That’s why I feel I must take this opportunity to condemn suitcase theft in all its forms, and to distance myself from Brinton, a person who I’d never heard of until today, and whose alleged crime sounds very, very silly.