(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Jeffery Burr has been the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Buffalo field office since March 2021—making him responsible for protecting dignitaries and conducting a variety of criminal investigations in a wide swath of western New York.
But on July 13, Burr was in another jurisdiction: Butler, Pennsylvania, where former President Donald Trump was almost assassinated. Specifically, Burr was running the Secret Service’s command center, which made him responsible for passing communications between the various law enforcement agencies.
As has been widely documented, the command center is where some of the key security failures occurred. Those failures included not notifying Secret Service snipers about gunman Thomas Crooks being on the AGR rooftop—despite having that information for at least two minutes before he opened fire.
Burr’s presence at Butler was revealed in a recently released transcript of an interview the Senate Homeland Security Committee conducted with Timothy Burke, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh office. Burr’s name is redacted, but he is repeatedly referred to as the special agent in charge of Buffalo—making his identity easy to uncover.
In the Senate’s interview, Burke told lawmakers that he was the one who assigned Burr—who served five years on former President Bill Clinton’s security detail—as the “command post supervisor” at Butler.
Lawmakers expressed surprise at Burke’s disclosure, and the Pittsburgh field office boss admitted that it wasn’t typical for a special agent in charge to assist in a campaign rally in another jurisdiction.
“He’s a friend of mine. He called me on July 10th, at some point during the day, to tell me that he received notification that he was going to be working the First Lady’s visit to Pittsburgh on the 13th,” Burke said.
“I asked him if he didn’t mind if I switched him to the Trump visit because I wanted a more senior agent in the—it’s listed as command post supervisor here but it’s actually a Security Room, is what we refer to it as at the site. [Burr] is a special agent in charge the Buffalo Field Office, so he’s got extensive experience, as well.”
Later in the interview, Burke admitted to lawmakers that he didn’t know whether Burr had experience overseeing command centers. He also admitted that he didn’t ask Burr whether he had experience in that role.
Regardless of Burr’s experience, his failures nearly resulted in Trump’s death—and did result in the death of a firefighter and the hospitalization of two other rallygoers.
One of Burr’s key failures was not notifying the Secret Service’s snipers about Crooks being on the rooftop he used as his perch, despite having that information for more than two minutes before shooting started. That failure was discussed in the Senate committee’s interview with Secret Service agent John Marciniak—who was the lead counter-sniper at the rally—as well as in the interview with another unnamed Secret Service sniper.
Marciniak and the other sniper both said in separate interviews no one told them about Crooks being on the rooftop.
When asked what he would have done differently if he knew Crooks was on the rooftop, Marciniak said the following: “We would probably—at this point we don’t know what he’s doing—but individual on the roof is definitely suspicious, borderline that’s a hazard. We don’t know what’s happening.
“We’re probably going to send local units—not [counter sniper] response—but we’re going to send local police up there to figure out what’s happening, what’s his intentions. If he’s just trying to get a better view of the event that’s happening, is he’s trying to take pictures, or does he have nefarious actions in mind,” Marciniak added.
Marciniak’s remark about not sending a counter sniper response is noteworthy because the Secret Service did, in fact, notify a counter sniper response agent—who was on the ground and not one of the snipers on the barns behind Trump—about Crooks on the rooftop. Another agent in the command center—not Burr—called that counter sniper response agent on the cell phone minutes before shooting began.
It’s not clear why the agent used the cell phone instead of the radio, and why the snipers weren’t notified when their response agent was.
While Burr may not have told the snipers about Crooks on the rooftop, he did put out a radio notification more than 20 minutes earlier about Crooks having a rangefinder—making it unclear as to why Trump’s protective detail allowed him to take the stage.
The Secret Service did not respond to an email seeking comment on Burr’s presence and actions at the Butler rally.
Burr’s role is not discussed in the Senate’s recent report on the Trump shooting. The Senate committee said in its report, however, that it’s still seeking to interview Burr.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
