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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35633 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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I'm surprised it even went this far.

You should read the Daily Signal link.

Investigators called Brinton on Oct. 9 and asked him whether he took anything from the Minneapolis airport that didn’t belong to him.

“Not that I know of,” Brinton replied, according to the complaint.

Brinton later admitted to taking the wrong bag, but said that he didn’t have the clothes and other contents that the woman said were in the suitcase.

“That was my clothes when I opened the bag,” the Energy Department official said, according to the complaint.

Brinton confirmed that he still had the bag.

Two hours later, Brinton called investigators and apologized for not being “completely honest.” He admitted to taking the Vera Bradley bag and said he was tired at the time and thought it was his.

Brinton told investigators that when he opened the bag and realized it wasn’t his, he got nervous and didn’t know what to do, according to the complaint.

So, Brinton said, he left the clothes from the bag inside drawers in his Saint Paul hotel room. He admitted to checking the bag at the airport Sept. 18 for his return flight to Washington.

When asked why he took the bag with him Sept. 18, Brinton said it would be “weirder” to leave a bag in the hotel room than the clothes, according to the complaint.

I don't see many ways for prosecutors to fail on this one (though I wouldn't be at all surprised if they deliberately failed). From this account I am more inclined to believe that he stole what he recognized as a very expensive piece of luggage, rather than what he expected to be women's underwear. But it is also presumably possible for both of those things to be true at once.

Didn’t he get caught on camera looking at and removing the luggage tag?

Just to be clear - the entire contents of the bag are worth over $2K while the suitcase is only worth $295 brand new. It would really shock me that someone in this position would a) risk a government job for petty theft B) steal a non-collectible, relatively inexpensive suitcase. What's the max you could even resell a used $300 suitcase for?

Obviously this story is really weird. But life is crazy enough that something like this could happen and at this point it was likely a mistake.

"It was a mistake" works right up to the moment when they opened the case and saw the clothes weren't theirs. Even then, "oh crap what do I do?" is excusable as a panic reaction, but first claiming "the case might be wrong but the clothes were mine" (that's a terrible lie, how do you expect to be believed?) and then "I took the clothes out and left them but took the case with me" isn't any better. Surely it would be easier to either take everything with you, or else leave everything behind. Granted, people don't act rationally when in a panic, but unless they can produce the other case that really belongs to them and have both cases for comparison, then "I thought it was mine" doesn't work, and unless there are two identical cases where they can do "This is mine and the one I was using on other trips, this is the case I took by mistake", then it does look like deliberate theft.

Why? I honestly have no idea. Maybe it was one moment of craziness. Maybe they are a kleptomaniac and it's going to come out that they've taken other stuff before.

Reacting to that situation with panic at all is just pathetically terrible judgement. Act like a fucking adult, and call the airport to explain what happened.

From this account I am more inclined to believe that he stole what he recognized as a very expensive piece of luggage

I too tend towards that explanation, but goodness gracious me, even for $295 price tag, if they had to steal it then what salary is a poor, downtrodden deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition expected to scrape by on and eat cold beans straight from the tin? 😁

I've read it now. His story is weird but not impossible. If there is no sexual motive (which, if the bag doesn't have a garish floral motive, there probably isn't) then it's going to be even harder to prove anything.

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