U.S. Secret Service Director James Murray announced Thursday that he will “briefly delay” his retirement amid multiple investigations into the agency’s response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In an internal message sent to staff Thursday afternoon and obtained by CBS News, Murray announced his decision to “briefly delay my retirement and transition to the private sector to help bridge the gap and foster a smooth and meaningful transition to to our future director.” The director added that he “recently spoke with Secretary Mayorkas and White House leadership, who agreed and extended the opportunity to do so.”
The memo was sent minutes after Murray informed agency leadership of his decision to stay on for the immediate future, according to two US Secret Service officials.
“I am very excited to use this time to oversee and ensure our agency’s cooperation, responsiveness, and full support with regard to ongoing congressional and other inquiries,” Murray wrote in your internal message to staff. “Doing this is very important and I’m especially grateful for the extra time to help keep our service moving forward.”
He was scheduled to serve his last day as a director on July 31 before moving to a new private sector role at Snap, Inc.
Murray’s decision comes as DHS attorneys are actively evaluating whether U.S. Secret Service officials can continue to cooperate with the House select committee investigating it January 6, 2021, Assault on the United States Capitol after the department’s top official told the agency to stop looking into what happened apparently deleted text messages since that day.
Murray served 32 years in the federal government and has been the agency’s executive director since May 1, 2019. He oversaw the agency through a record 42 deployments of protective details during the Trump administration, a presidential campaign and the COVID-19 pandemic. in addition to navigating through a series of controversies.
The most recent controversy came earlier this month, after a House select committee on Jan. 6 subpoenaed text messages from two dozen Secret Service agents that were apparently deleted during an agency-wide technology migration, despite requests for preservation from researchers and Congress. House panel staff said they received only one text message as a result of the agency’s July 15 subpoena asking for their text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021.
The select committee says the Secret Service may have violated the Federal Records Act for failing to properly preserve communications sent and received during the attack on the United States Capitol.
In his memo to staff, Murray acknowledged that the US Secret Service faces a “unique and challenging time.”
“Now, as always, our top priorities are the success of our mission; the well-being of our people; and our collective and individual responsibility to serve our country and our fellow citizens in a way that always be worthy of trust and confidence,” the director said. added “I assure you that, during this short transition period, I remain committed to pursuing each of these goals to the fullest extent.”
A spokesperson for Snap Inc. responded to the delay in Murray’s start date in a statement: “We support Jim’s decision to delay his retirement both to focus on cooperating with the ongoing investigation into the January 6 attacks, and help ensure a smooth transition to a new director. We will continue to monitor this situation as this investigation continues to unfold.”
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Nicole Sganga
