WASHINGTON — Days after news broke that Samuel Brinton, a Department of Energy official responsible for nuclear waste policy, was charged with felony theft in Minnesota, Brinton’s boss spoke only in general terms to lawmakers and press here Thursday about possible disciplinary steps.
“It is certainly correct that when a DOE clearance-holder is charged with a crime, that case is considered by DOE personnel security officers,” Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy, testified during a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Depending on the circumstances, that could result in immediate suspension or revocation of a clearance.”
Huff was responding to questioning by the committee’s ranking member Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) who on Wednesday called for Brinton’s firing in the wake of news that the recently hired DOE official in September allegedly stole a woman’s suitcase from the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport and then lied to authorities about it, despite being recorded on closed circuit television.
After the hearing, Huff declined to comment to RadWaste Monitor about the felony theft charge levied against Brinton, the deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition since June 19. Huff also would not say whether DOE itself was investigating the alleged criminal conduct.
According to federal regulations that govern access to classified matter and special nuclear material, “derogatory information” received about an existing clearance-holder must be investigated by a legally-designated “local director of security.” In the case of the agency’s Washington headquarters, that role is filled by DOE’s Office of Headquarters Personnel Security Operations.
According to the regulation, if such an investigation turns up clearance-nullifying information, the individual in question will have their security clearance suspended and an administrative process, including a hearing, will be initiated to determine whether access should be permanently revoked.
To the committee, Huff said that “the integrity of our nation’s classified information protections … is pivotal to our nation’s security,” and that she and the rest of DOE take such security measures “very seriously.”
According to the criminal complaint against Brinton, filed Oct. 27 in Minnesota’s Hennepin County District Court, the DOE official was seen on airport surveillance footage Sep. 16 removing “a navy blue hard-sided roller bag” from a baggage claim carousel — a bag similar to one reported missing that day.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport Police Department confirmed that Brinton, who identifies as genderfluid and uses ‘they,’ ‘them’ and ‘theirs’ as personal pronouns, had arrived on a flight from Washington without a checked bag. Video surveillance captured at the airport Sep. 18 shows Brinton checking a blue roller bag for a departing flight back to Washington.
When contacted by police about the incident Oct. 9, Brinton initially denied taking anything that wasn’t theirs, but later called the airport police back, saying that they had not been “completely honest” and “admitted to taking the blue bag.”
Brinton said they were “nervous people would think they stole the bag and did not know what to do,” according to the complaint.
A spokesperson for the Minneapolis airport police’s records office declined via email Monday to share a case report, saying that it was still “under open investigation.”
Under Minnesota law, the crime with which Brinton was charged carries a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison, a $10,000 fine or both.
A hearing in the case was scheduled for Dec. 19. Brinton’s attorney Tuesday requested that the DOE official be allowed to appear remotely due to financial and logistical difficulties. The state of Minnesota did not object to that request.
A DOE spokesperson declined to comment. Brinton declined to comment, and Brinton’s attorney, Minneapolis-based lawyer Fabian Hoffner, did not return multiple requests for comment.
Brinton has been on leave from DOE for at least a month, the agency has acknowledged. On Nov. 18, Kim Petry, the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel who has stood in for Brinton, wrote in an email to DOE colleagues that Huff had asked her to stay on as head of the spent fuel office “for the foreseeable future.”
“I should have another update for all of you in a month or so,” Petry wrote in the email. That timetable corresponds roughly with Brinton’s scheduled hearing in Minneapolis.
