James Murray, who served as Secret Service director for parts of the Trump and Biden presidencies, will retire at the end of this month, the agency announced Thursday.
Murray's time as Secret Service director, which began in 2019, covered the coronavirus pandemic and the awkward power transfer from former President Donald Trump to current President Joe Biden.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas touted Murray as an "exceptional leader" in a DHS statement, while also thanking him for providing great insight into DHS matters.
"Under Director Murray's leadership, the Secret Service has reinforced its stature as the preeminent protective agency in the world and has increased in sophistication and scope its investigative capabilities to meet an increasingly dynamic threat landscape," Mayorkas said in a statement.
In its Thursday news release, the agency credited Murray with guiding the Secret Service "through eight National Special Security Events and nearly 20,000 international and domestic protective operations. During that time, the agency also recovered approximately $4.2B in fraud loss and prevented an estimated $8.1B in additional losses at the hands of criminal enterprise."
Prior to joining the Secret Service as a special agent, Murray spent five years as an investigator with the Department of Transportation.
Murray also coordinated Secret Service protection for the 2016 presidential election and the transition that followed (former President Barack Obama to Trump).
The Secret Service has been in the national spotlight of late, particularly after last week's Jan. 6, 2021 testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump aide, who testified that Trump "lunged" for the steering wheel of his presidential motorcade and then at Robert Engel, the special agent in charge for Secret Service that day.
Soon thereafter, a handful of Secret Service agents publicly refuted Hutchinson's claims and subsequently asked to testify.
However, the House select committee in the charge of the Jan. 6, 2021 hearings has yet to let anyone from that agency formally take the stand.
Trump has also denied Hutchinson's claims, in full.
On Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters there was "no relation" between Hutchinson's testimony and the timing of Murray's retirement.
"This has been in talks for several months," Jean-Pierre said, while adding that Murray is expected to join the private sector.
The Secret Service first formed on July 5, 1865 — three months after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln — as part of the Department of the Treasury.
Chief William P. Wood was sworn in as the first Secret Service chief (now director) by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch.
Two years later, the federal government broadened the Secret Service's responsibilities to "detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government."
This appropriation resulted in investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, nonconforming distillers, smugglers, mail robbers, land frauds and a number of other infractions against federal laws, according to the agency's website.
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