James Murray, the director of the Secret Service for the last three years, will retire at the end of the month, the agency announced Thursday.
Murray spent 27 years in the Secret Service and has served as its director since May 2019. He has led the agency through the coronavirus pandemic, with a number of agents contracting the virus during the 2020 presidential campaign, and through the tumultuous transition after the 2020 election.
“Director Jim Murray has led a long and distinguished career in federal and military service for 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 over self, and protected the families of U.S. Presidents like they were part of his own. 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 has relied on during his tenure atop the Department of Homeland Security.
“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 a news release announcing his retirement, 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.”
This is an excerpt from The Hill.
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