James Murray, director of the Secret Service for the past three years, will retire at the end of the month, the agency announced Thursday.
Murray spent 27 years with the Secret Service and has served as its director since May 2019. He led the agency through the coronavirus pandemic, with a number of agents contracting the virus during the 2020 presidential campaign and the tumultuous transition after the 2020 election. , including the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Director Jim Murray has led a long and distinguished career in federal and military service spanning three decades, including the last three years as Director of the United States Secret Service,” President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden said in a statement. “Jim embodies the meaning of service above himself and protects the families of American presidents as if they were part of him. We are incredibly grateful for his service to our country and our family.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas praised Murray as an “exceptional leader” whose advice he relied on during his tenure at the helm of the Department of Homeland Security.
“Under Director Murray’s leadership, the Secret Service has solidified its reputation as the world’s leading security agency and increased the sophistication and scope of its investigative capabilities to meet an increasingly dynamic threat landscape,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
In a news release announcing his retirement, the agency credited Murray with leading the Secret Service “through eight national special security events and nearly 20,000 international and domestic security operations. During that time, the agency also recovered approximately $4.2 billion in fraud losses and prevented approximately $8.1 billion in additional losses at the hands of a criminal enterprise.
Before joining the Secret Service as a special agent, Murray spent five years as an investigator for the Department of Transportation.
Murray coordinated Secret Service security for the 2016 presidential election and the transition that followed.
The agency has been in the spotlight in recent weeks because of the events of January 6, 2021, when a mob of former President Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump White House aide, testified last week that Trump was so angry when he was told he could not join supporters at the Capitol that he threw himself behind the wheel of his car and then to Robert Engel, the Special Agent in Charge for the Secret Service that day.
The Secret Service acknowledged that Trump wanted to join supporters at the Capitol, something the former president has indicated publicly, but the agency denied Hutchinson’s account, which she heard secondhand, that Trump threw himself at the wheel or at Engel .
Hutchinson also testified that she heard Trump complain about the Secret Service not allowing people known to carry guns into his Ellipse rally for his Jan. 6 speech.
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White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that there was “no connection” between testimony before the Jan. 6 House panel and the timing of the director’s announcement.
“This has been discussed for several months,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that Murray was expected to join the private sector.
Updated at 4:12 p.m
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