United States Secret Service Director James Murray will stand down from government service at the end of the month, the agency said in a press release on Thursday.
Mr Murray, a 27-year Secret Service veteran, is the 26th person to serve in the director’s role, and has done so since May 2019. According to multiple reports, he is set to assume a role in corporate security with Snap, inc.
His retirement will give President Joe Biden a chance to select someone to lead the Secret Service, which is best known for its role in standing up protective details for the president, vice president, their families, and others as required by law and by executive order, but is also responsible for investigating counterfeiting of US currency and other financial and computer crimes.
The Army veteran assumed the director’s position after former president Donald Trump fired his previous pick for the role, Randoph Ailes, following reports that a suspected Chinese spy had evaded Secret Service agents and gained access to his winter residence at the private club he runs at Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach, Florida mansion originally built by Post cereal heiress Marjorie Meriweather Post.
Mr Murray’s retirement comes as the agency is facing questions about a top agent’s candour in testimony before the House January 6 select committee.
Last month, ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the panel that the head of Mr Trump’s detail and the then-White House deputy chief of staff for operations, a Secret Service agent called Tony Ornato, told her Mr Trump had “lunged” at Mr Engel and a Secret Service driver after being told he would not be permitted to travel to the Capitol with a riotous mob of his supporters on 6 January 2021.
Mr Engel and Mr Ornato, who was permitted to serve in a political role in the Trump White House while maintaining his status as a Secret Service agent, have reportedly denied telling Ms Hutchinson any such thing, but her attorneys say she stands by her testimony.
