Timothy Burke, chief of the Pennsylvania Secret Service, is one of five agents assigned to “administrative duties” as part of an investigation into the mistakes made by 20-year-old Thomas Crooks in the shooting of Donald Trump last month.
Burke is the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of the Secret Service Pittsburgh office and has served in that role since 2016.
When contacted by phone, Burke, 48, told DailyMail.com he could not comment on the case.
MSNBC reported Friday morning that SAIC and four others had been suspended, but did not mention Burke by name.
According to NBC News, four Pittsburgh police officers, including the department’s chief, and one Trump agent have been suspended.
The massive security lapse that led to the horrific shooting has prompted investigations by several government agencies.
A source with knowledge of the events surrounding the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, told DailyMail.com that Burke was not at the scene that day but was tasked with, among other things, approving the security plan for Trump’s campaign rally.
Timothy Burke, head of the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh Field Office
Several Secret Service agents have been suspended amid the investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, according to reports
Burke was mentioned by his SAIC title in an April Secret Service press release about a crackdown on cybercrime, and in a 2016 press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania about the extradition of a Cuban hacker.
Pittsburgh’s Secret Service chief also participated in a video conference on cybersecurity in 2021.
Burke knew the Secret Service had limited resources prior to the campaign event, according to a letter from the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on July 18.
Jordan said whistleblowers told him that during a Secret Service-led briefing on July 8, five days before Trump’s rally, “USSS Special Agent in Charge Tim Burke reportedly told law enforcement partners that the USSS had limited resources that week because the agency was covering the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C.”
Federal law enforcement officials have come forward to Congress to act as whistleblowers in the alleged ongoing chaos within the Secret Service that led to the shocking security lapses in July and other problems.
Tristan Leavitt, chairman of the watchdog group Empower Oversight, which represents some of the whistleblowers, issued a public statement sharply criticizing the Secret Service’s lackluster response to the shooting. He said Burke and the four other USSS officials should have been immediately suspended instead of merely assigned to desk jobs while they were investigated.
Thomas Matthew Crooks pictured at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 before he opened fire on the crowd and the former president
“Administrative leave is a paid status that requires you to not come to work — days ‘on the rocks’ or ‘on the beach’ as federal agents often call them,” Leavitt wrote on Twitter. “That’s not the case here.
‘Here the USSS has merely assigned these workers to administrative duties, which they should have done at least on July 13.
“They should be removed from their offices and placed on investigative leave.”
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to comment on reports that the agents were suspended due to a “personnel matter.”
But he told DailyMail.com they are still ‘investigating the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure.’
“The U.S. Secret Service places high demands on our personnel. Any documented and substantiated violations of policy are investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility and may result in disciplinary action.”
The suspended agents are expected to continue working and receiving pay for the Secret Service, and have most likely been reassigned to administrative roles while the investigation continues.
Crooks’ plan led to the firing of the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, and raised a host of questions, including how he was able to climb onto a roof with a clear view of where Trump was delivering his speech in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Witnesses had spotted the potential killer before the shooting, and the Secret Service and police were alerted to his presence.
Still, he was able to open fire at least eight more times with the AR-style rifle he had received from his father.
Republican Rep. Mike Waltz told DailyMail.com earlier this week that he was not convinced Crooks acted alone.
He said the shooter’s motive remains unknown and he is concerned that a foreign entity or other third party could be involved in the attack.
Waltz questioned how federal law enforcement can say with certainty that Crooks was a lone wolf if they can’t answer other questions, such as why he had multiple offshore accounts for encrypted messaging.
His comments came after it emerged that Iran was also planning an attack on the former president around the same time Crooks was carrying out his plan.
“The more we dig into it, the more questions I have,” Waltz said. “It’s what’s coming out around it that’s so disturbing.
“What I find most disturbing is that there are plans underway in Iran to take out a former presidential candidate, and a Pakistani national has just been arrested after making a down payment for hitmen, and this is barely in the news.”
The 20-year-old Crooks managed to make several explosives using remote detonators, which also raised Waltz’s eyebrows and made him wonder if he had help.
While the FBI, Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security investigate the massive security failure, Waltz and 12 other lawmakers on a House task force are also investigating the attempted assassination.
“I don’t understand, and I don’t have any answers yet that would help me understand how the (Secret) Service and DHS came out so quickly and said — and I think the FBI did too, but I’ll have to check — and said he was acting alone,” Waltz told DailyMail.com on Wednesday at Trump Tower in Chicago.
‘How do you know that after just a few days of research?’
The Florida congressman added: “You can’t tell us his motive, but you can tell us he acted alone? You can’t get to those encrypted offshore accounts, but you can tell us he acted alone? So, I don’t believe that yet.”
A man was arrested in Arizona after he threatened to kill Trump at a rally in Cochise County, near the southern border with Mexico. Ronald Syvrud, 66, was arrested shortly before Trump was scheduled to speak.
In the July 13, 2013, shooting, a bullet from Crooks’ AR-style weapon, which was legally purchased through his father, grazed the former president’s right ear.
Crooks killed one protester and seriously wounded two others before being knocked out.
The FBI also found explosives in Crooks’ car, which was parked at the rally site. And when they searched his parents’ house, where he lived, they found more bombs.
“I don’t know many 19-year-old kids who can make multiple IEDs with a remote detonator,” Waltz told DailyMail.com. “Why hasn’t that been picked up if he’s looking online or buying literature on how to do it?”