Secret Service Chief to Depart Amid Shakeup at Homeland Security

(Bloomberg) -- The director of the U.S. Secret Service will leave his job, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee said, amid an investigation into a security breach at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort and a broader shakeup within the Department of Homeland Security.

Ralph Alles “will be leaving shortly” from the Secret Service, Sanders said in a statement on Monday. A Chinese national, Yujing Zhang, was arrested March 30 after entering President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, resort with electronics including a thumb drive containing malware and lying to a Secret Service agent about why she was there.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Alles should testify to Congress about the Mar-a-Lago incident.

“The public and Congress need to know the extent to which adversarial governments - like China - and their agents are attempting to gain access to, or conduct electronic surveillance on, conversations or other information regarding national security at President Trump’s properties,” Schumer said in a statement.

Alles was asked to plan his departure prior to Zhang’s arrest, two people familiar with the matter said. The move also follows Trump’s ouster of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Sunday, as his frustration over a spike in illegal border crossings grows.

Alles has led the Secret Service since April 2017. Before that, he was acting deputy commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which he joined in 2012 under the Obama administration. He is a 35-year veteran of the Marines.

James Murray, a career member of the Secret Service, will take over as director beginning in May, Sanders said.

--With assistance from Jonathan Levin.

To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net;Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu

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