Empower Wisconsin | Dec. 1, 2022

Perhaps someone in the woke Biden administration should have told Sam Brinton that inclusion doesn’t include designer luggage lifted from the airport.

Brinton, the Department of Energy’s non-binary deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition, has been charged with stealing a fellow traveler’s Vera Bradley suitcase from the luggage carousel at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The suitcase is valued at $2,325.

The alleged theft occurred on Sept. 16, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital. Brinton had traveled from Washington, D.C., to Minneapolis that day.

“After the suitcase’s owner alerted police, officers reviewed video surveillance of the carousel and identified Brinton taking the luggage before removing its tag identifying the owner, the court filings stated,” Fox News Digital reported. “Law enforcement observed Brinton using the luggage during at least two other trips to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18 and Oct. 9.

Brinton denied stealing the luggage, although confirmed still possessing it.

“If I had taken the wrong bag, I am happy to return it, but I don’t have any clothes for another individual,” Brinton told an officer. “That was my clothes when I opened the bag.”

Two hours after the phone call with the officer, Brinton called back and apologized for not being “completely honest.” But Brinton said it was a mistake and blamed being tired for taking the wrong bag at the carousel, according to the criminal complaint, which exhaustively labors over using the correct pronoun.

Brinton was ultimately charged with felony theft of a movable property without consent, a charge that could result in a five-year sentence, $10,000 fine or both.

Brinton was placed on leave about a month ago and another official was named as a replacement in the interim earlier this month, according to the Exchange Monitor which tracks government hires. The DOE originally didn’t explain why Brinton took leave at the time.

“Sam Brinton is on leave from DOE, and Dr. Kim Petry is performing the duties of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition,” a DOE spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.

In June, Brinton made headlines after assuming the position in the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy as one of the government’s first-ever non-binary officials.

“There’s been a lot of people who are quite upset that don’t think that I am quite as qualified as others,” Brinton told E&E News in October. “I respond with multiple graduate degrees from MIT, a decade of working in nuclear policy and the strongest enthusiasm for working in nuclear waste out of anybody.”

Yul Brynner in a dress also appears to have a penchant for Vera Bradley.

Only the best and brightest in the inclusive Biden administration.

Read more at Fox News Digital.