Tim Burger

Of Counsel

Tim Burger is Of Counsel to Seven Letter. Tim is a crisis and investigative consultant and writer who was a full-time journalist in Washington, DC, for over 20 years, until 2010, when he founded the a crisis and opportunity consulting firm Plumb Concepts LLC.

Bringing opposition, or “oppo,” research to the public affairs realm, Tim has had significant successes in areas including the specialty of identifying hypocrisy, foibles and controversy in subject entities and discretely flagging them for the media.

Tim Burger is Of Counsel to Seven Letter. Tim is a crisis and investigative consultant and writer who was a full-time journalist in Washington, DC, for over 20 years, until 2010, when he founded the a crisis and opportunity consulting firm Plumb Concepts LLC. Former clients have included large non-profits and CEOs and attorneys of Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 corporations as well as law and PR firms. The client spectrum includes energy, finance, healthcare, high-tech, data and cyber security.


 Tim broke numerous investigative, national security and political stories over more than 20 years as a staff journalist at publications such as TIME Magazine, the New York Daily News, Bloomberg News, Roll Call and Legal Times. Today, he continues to publish as a freelance contributor to outlets like Town & CountryVICEDuJour and POLITICO Magazine, where he contributed a widely-noted article about gay staff in the George W. Bush White House.


 As a full-time journalist, Tim covered crises and investigations ranging from the September 11 terrorist attacks to the Iraq War and related faulty intelligence, as well as the Valerie Plame controversy. He has covered Congress (breaking the House Bank overdraft scandal for Roll Call in 1991), the 2000 presidential campaign and recount and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns and first two years in the Senate, as well as George W. Bush’s campaign and Presidency and former President Obama’s campaigns.


 As a national security Correspondent at TIME from 2002 to 2007, Burger covered the CIA, intelligence and national security. Burger broke stories in 2004 about the Pentagon’s handling of major contracts with Halliburton and, for the Daily News in 2002, about then-Vice President Cheney going to bat for Enron with the Indian government. As an investigative reporter at Bloomberg, he broke stories about the 2008 presidential campaign, such as the dual corporate-campaign roles of Clinton adviser Mark Penn and Barack Obama’s history with Bill Ayers and details of his links to Antoin Rezko. Burger has broken numerous other state and federal money and politics and ethics stories. Burger has done scores of live TV and radio interviews about his stories and related news about major national security, scandal and political events, including on Charlie Rose, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, WJLA (Washington’s ABC affiliate), Aljazeera, Al-Hurra and National Public Radio. He is a 1988 graduate of Dartmouth College.