Lawmaker Slams CNN Over Wokeness

CNN anchor Pamela Brown claimed she was completely unaware of Sam Brinton, the well-known, nonbinary ex-Biden administration official who faced multiple charges for stealing suitcases stocked with women’s clothing from airports.

Brinton first gained attention in mid-2022 upon being named head of nuclear waste policy at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, identifying as a nonbinary, gender-fluid individual using they/them pronouns. The luggage theft controversy kept Brinton in the spotlight, though Brown seemingly remained oblivious to it all.

In a tense exchange on Tuesday, Brown remarked that the Trump administration was “attempting to reinstate several employees who managed nuclear weapons,” prompting Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., to bring up Brinton.

🚨🔥@timburchett just made CNN’s Pamela Brown rethink her entire existence 🤣

He even brought up Sam Brinton, "the man who dressed like a
woman and stole luggage"
😭 pic.twitter.com/SVhXfOZhlO

— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) February 18, 2025

“You’re talking about nuclear secrets—there was a guy in charge of them, a man who dressed as a woman, who’d go into airports and swipe women’s luggage, overseeing those nuclear secrets under Biden, and I never heard a word about it from you all,” Burchett fired back.

Brown responded, “I don’t know anything about that, to be honest.”

Burchett suggested the CNN anchor “look into” Brinton’s story.

Brown’s unfamiliarity might stem from CNN’s minimal coverage of the saga. The network posted a single online article in December 2022 titled “Top Energy Department official no longer employed after luggage theft accusations.”

A Grabien Media search shows CNN only mentioned Brinton on-air once, in a December 2022 “Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” segment that distanced him from Biden. “Several House Republicans seized on the case to argue the Biden administration favored wokeness over competence by hiring Brinton,” CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported. “But to be clear, Brinton wasn’t a Biden appointee—he was brought on as a senior civil service official.”