Federal Bureau of Investigation

On July 26, 1908, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte signed a memo creating a “regular force of special agents” of 34 agents, nine of them former Secret Service investigators and 25 of his own, and ordered them to report to Chief Examiner Stanley Finch. The FBI regards that day as its official birth.⁠[1][2]

On March 16, 1909, Attorney General George W. Wickersham gave the force its first name, the Bureau of Investigation (BOI). In 1910 it took the investigative lead under the Mann Act, the “White Slave Traffic Act,” and by 1915 its personnel had grown from 34 to about 360 special agents and support staff.⁠[1]

After Congress declared war on April 6, 1917, the Bureau took on responsibilities under the Espionage Act and the Sabotage Act and also rounded up army deserters and policed enemy aliens. In 1919–1920 anarchist bombings sparked the “Red Scare,” and a young Justice Department lawyer, J. Edgar HooverJ. Edgar HooverJ. Edgar Hoover (John Edgar Hoover, 1895–1972) was an American law-enforcement official who led the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation from 1924; the agency took the name Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935, and he remained its director until his death in 1972.Open the full entry, led the investigation under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. On December 15, 1919, the Bureau issued its first wanted poster, “Identification Order No. 1.”⁠[1]

Early women special agents of the Bureau included Alaska P. Davidson (October 1922 to June 1924), Jessie B. Duckstein (November 1923 to May 1924) and Lenore Houston (January 1924 to November 1928).⁠[1]

On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan F. Stone designated J. Edgar Hoover Acting Director, and he was appointed Director by the end of the year. Following the Teapot Dome scandals, Hoover cut the Bureau’s rolls in the spring of 1924. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry credits Hoover as largely responsible for the bureau’s growth and professionalization in the 1920s and 1930s.⁠[2][1][3]

On July 1, 1932, the Bureau of Investigation became the United States Bureau of Investigation (USBOI), and on November 24, 1932, it established a Technical Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In 1933, after the Bureau of Prohibition was placed under Hoover’s supervision, the name changed to the Division of Investigation within a year.⁠[2]

On July 1, 1935, the Division of Investigation officially became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On July 29, 1935, the FBI launched a national police training program with a class of 23 officers, the forerunner of the FBI National Academy.⁠[2]

In 1950 the FBI created its “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list.⁠[1]

From 1956 to 1971 the FBI ran COINTELPRO, a counterintelligence program whose targets included the Communist Party. In 1971 a group calling itself the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI office in Media, PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry, and released the stolen files to the press; the FBI officially discontinued the operations that year.⁠[4]

The Senate select committee that later investigated it described COINTELPRO as a program of “covert action designed to disrupt and discredit” targeted groups and individuals.⁠[5]

On June 1, 1968, Public Law 90-351 set a ten-year term for future Directors, effective after Hoover’s tenure; the Director is appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate.⁠[2][3]

J. Edgar Hoover died in his sleep on May 2, 1972, at age 77, and Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry appointed L. Patrick Gray III Acting Director. Britannica gives Hoover’s leadership of the bureau as December 10, 1924, to May 2, 1972. That same month women became a regular part of the FBI as special agents.⁠[2][3][1]

Clarence M. Kelley, a former FBI agent and Kansas City police chief, was sworn in as Director on July 9, 1973.⁠[2]

On January 27, 1975, the Senate voted 82–4 to create the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Frank Church with John Tower as vice chairman, to investigate the Central Intelligence AgencyCentral Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent U.S. intelligence agency established under the National Security Act of 1947 to provide national security intelligence to senior U.S. policymakers. It is headquartered in Langley, Virginia.Open the full entry, the FBI, the IRS and the NSA, including COINTELPRO. The committee issued its final report, with 96 recommendations, on April 29, 1976.⁠[5]

In March 1976 Attorney General Edward H. Levi issued guidelines for FBI intelligence activities, and on October 4, 1976, the FBI created an Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate employee misconduct. In 1978 Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJimmy Carter (1924–2024) was an American politician and Democrat who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. His administration brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, signed the Panama Canal treaties and established relations with the People’s Republic of China, but he lost his reelection bid amid the energy crisis, inflation and the Iran hostage crisis; after leaving office he founded The Carter Center to work on mediation, election observation and disease control, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.Open the full entry signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the executive branch to request surveillance warrants from a new FISA Court.⁠[2][5]

William H. Webster was sworn in as Director on February 23, 1978.⁠[2]

Louis J. Freeh was sworn in as Director on September 1, 1993.⁠[2]

Robert S. Mueller III took the oath of office as Director on September 4, 2001. After the September 11 attacks the FBI assigned 7,000 of its 11,000 special agents to the PENTTBOM investigation. Britannica records that the bureau then revised its policies and structure to put more resources into counterterrorism, that its surveillance powers were expanded under the USA PATRIOT Act, and that it created an Office of Intelligence in 2003.⁠[2][3]

On September 12, 2005, the FBI established a National Security Branch combining its counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence elements.⁠[2]

James B. Comey was sworn in as Director on September 4, 2013, the day Mueller retired. On August 2, 2017, Christopher Wray became the eighth Director of the FBI.⁠[2]

On February 21, 2025, Kash PatelKash PatelKash Patel (born 1980) is an American lawyer and government official who held posts at the Justice Department, in the House of Representatives and on the White House National Security Council, and has been director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 2025.Open the full entry had a ceremonial swearing-in as Director of the FBI in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, where Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke.⁠[6]

On September 15, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel submitted testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. It lists the bureau’s priorities as crushing violent crime, defending the homeland, rebuilding public trust and ensuring organizational accountability, and states that Joint Terrorism Task Forces are stationed in all 56 field offices and that the FBI co-leads 59 Homeland Security Task Forces with the Department of Homeland Security.⁠[7]

The FBI states its mission as to “protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry.” It has more than 350 satellite offices, called resident agencies, across the country and employs 37,000 people around the globe. Its investigative authority extends to most federal criminal laws in more than 200 areas.⁠[8][3]

Abroad the FBI has 63 legal attaché offices (legats) and 30 smaller suboffices covering more than 180 countries, territories and islands; each is established by mutual agreement with the host country, located in a U.S. embassy or consulate and managed by the International Operations Division at FBI Headquarters.⁠[9]

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Official website: https://www.fbi.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]