Head of US Secret Service, James Murray, quits to join Snapchat. For permitting Anthony Ornato, a top Secret Service agent, to serve as a political consultant in the Trump White House, Murray has come under scrutiny.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden announced on Thursday that US Secret Service Director James Murray will retire after three years in the position.
“Jim embodies the meaning of service over self, and protected the families of U.S. Presidents like they were part of his own,” the statement said. “We are incredibly grateful for his service to our country and our family.”
Murray will start a new job as chief security officer at Snap Inc., the business that oversees Snapchat, in early August, according to a company representative. The decision was first reported by the Washington Post. Murray will answer to Snap CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel directly.
The retirement emerges promptly after former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to a House committee investigating the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, highlighting the numerous interactions Anthony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official named deputy chief of staff by President Donald Trump in December 2019, used to have with Trump and other White House aides during the insurgency.
Ornato demonstrated readiness to dispute Hutchinson’s dramatic testimony, during which she claimed Ornato told her that Trump reached toward the steering wheel of his detail’s SUV on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to be transported to the Capitol.
Hutchinson’s testimony caused the Jan. 6 committee to cast serious doubt on Ornato’s integrity as a political appointee in the White House. According to a person who detailed the discussions, Ornato related multiple recollections of Jan. 6 in a January interview with the committee, prompting panel members to dispute his account of events.
Since Secret Service employees are “sworn to be above politics,” Murray’s judgment to permit Ornato to function as the president’s political advisor “crossed a major line,” according to Carol Leonnig, a Washington Post reporter and author of “Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service,” who wrote on Twitter. Murray and Ornato are described in the book as being close friends.
According to Leonnig in her tweet, Ornato’s political appointment was “approved by current director James Murray at Trump’s urging, a decision that infuriated current and former agents.”
Murray’s departure was not connected to the discoveries from the committee hearings on January 6, according to press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who was questioned about the matter during the daily White House press briefing.
She noted that discussions over the director’s retirement had been occurring since April and added, “This has been in talks for several months.”
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