Pennsylvania Secret Service Chief Timothy Burke is among five agents assigned to “administrative duties” as part of an investigation into failures that allowed 20-year-old Thomas Crooks to shoot Donald Trump last month.
Burke is the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh field office and has held the position since at least 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 placed on leave, but did not name Burke.
According to NBC News, four Pittsburgh field agents, including the division chief, and a Trump aide have been placed on leave.
The massive security failure that led to the horrific shooting has sparked ongoing investigations by a wide range of government agencies.
A source briefed on the events of the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, told DailyMail.com that Burke was not at the scene that day but that his role included approving the advance security plan for Trump’s campaign rally.
Timothy Burke, Chief of the Secret Service Pittsburgh Field Office
Several Secret Service agents have been placed on leave during the investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, reports suggest
Burke was named by his SAIC title in a Secret Service press release from April of this year about a cybercrime crackdown, and in a 2016 release from the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of Pennsylvania about the extradition of a Cuban hacker.
The head of the Pittsburgh Secret Service also participated in a video conference on cybersecurity in 2021.
Burke knew the Secret Service had limited resources before 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 at a Secret Service-led briefing on July 8, five days before Trump’s rally, “USSS Special Agent in Charge Tim Burke allegedly 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 been turning to Congress to denounce the alleged ongoing debacle within the Secret Service that led to the shocking security lapse in July, as well as other problems.
Tristan Leavitt, president of the watchdog group Empower Oversight that represents some of those whistleblowers, criticized the Secret Service’s lackluster response to the shooting in a public statement, saying Burke and the four other USSS officials should have been placed on leave immediately rather than simply assigned desk duty while they are investigated.
Thomas Matthew Crooks is pictured at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 before opening fire on the crowd and the former president.
“Administrative leave is a paid status where you are not allowed to go to work; ‘on the road’ or ‘on the beach’ days as federal agents often call them,” Leavitt wrote on Twitter. “That is not what is happening here.
‘Here, all the USSS has done is place these employees on administrative duties, which it should have done at least on July 13.
‘They should be removed from the office and put on investigative leave.’
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi had no comment on reports that the agents were placed on leave because it was a “personnel matter.”
But he told DailyMail.com that they are still “examining the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure.”
‘The United States Secret Service holds our personnel to the highest professional standards, and any identified and substantiated violations of policies will be investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility for possible disciplinary action.’
The suspended agents are expected to continue working for the Secret Service and receiving their salaries. They have most likely been moved to an administrative position while the investigation continues.
Crooks’ plot prompted the resignation of the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, and raised a host of questions, including how he was able to climb onto a rooftop with a clear view of where Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The suspected killer was seen by witnesses before the shooting and the Secret Service and law enforcement were alerted to his presence.
Still, he was able to open fire at least eight times with the AR-style rifle he 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 gunman’s motivation is still unknown and he is concerned that a foreign entity or other third party may have been involved in the attack.
Waltz asked how federal authorities can say with certainty that Crooks was a lone wolf if they can’t answer other questions, such as why he had multiple foreign encrypted messaging accounts.
His comments came after it was revealed that Iran was also planning an assassination attempt on the former president around the same time Crooks carried out his plot.
“The deeper we get into it, the more questions I have,” Waltz said. “It’s what’s really emerging around it that’s so disturbing.”
“And to me, the most disturbing thing is that we have ongoing plots from Iran to eliminate a former president, a leading candidate, and a Pakistani citizen has just been arrested after making an initial payment to hitmen, and it’s barely being covered in the news.”
Crooks, 20, was able to create multiple explosives with remote detonators, another thing that surprised Waltz and made him wonder if he received help.
As the FBI, Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security conduct their investigations into the massive security breach, Waltz and 12 other lawmakers on a House task force are also looking into the assassination attempt.
“I don’t understand it, and I still don’t have any answers 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 – that he was operating alone,” Waltz said while speaking to DailyMail.com at Trump Tower in Chicago on Wednesday.
—How do you know that just a few days after starting your investigation?
The Florida congressman added: “They can’t tell us what his motive was, but can they tell us he acted alone? They can’t access these encrypted accounts overseas, but can they tell us he acted alone? So I don’t believe it yet.”
A man was arrested in Arizona after threatening to kill Trump at a rally in Cochise County, near the southern border with Mexico. Ronald Syvrud, 66, was detained shortly before Trump was due to speak.
In the July 13 shooting, a bullet fired from Crooks’ AR-style weapon, legally purchased by his father, grazed the former president’s right ear.
The robbers killed one protester and seriously injured two others before being removed from the scene.
The FBI also found explosives in Crooks’ car, which was parked near the protest site. And when they raided his parents’ home, where he lived, they found more bombs.
“I don’t know many 19-year-olds who can make multiple IEDs with a remote detonator on their own,” Waltz told DailyMail.com. “Why hasn’t it been detected if he’s looking on the internet or buying literature on how to do it?”