Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
|Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation|
|Federal Bureau of Investigation|
|Reports to||Attorney General|
Director of National Intelligence
|Seat||J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.|
with Senate advice and consent
|Term length||10 years, renewable (only by the Senate)|
|Formation||July 26, 1908|
|First holder||Stanley Finch|
The director is responsible for the day-to-day operations. Along with the deputy director, the director makes sure cases and operations are handled correctly. The director also is in charge of hiring the leaders in any one of the FBI field offices with qualified agents. The director advised the president on any issues that arose from within the FBI. This was until the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was enacted in response to the September 11 attacks. Since then, the director reports to the Director of National Intelligence, who in turn reports to the president.
Directors are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. In theory, they serve ten-year terms unless they resign, die, or are let go. In reality, none have served a full ten years, except J. Edgar Hoover and Robert Mueller. They both served longer than ten years. J. Edgar Hoover was appointed by Calvin Coolidge to the office in 1924. He was by far the longest-serving director. Hoover held the position from its establishment under the current title in 1935 until his death in 1972 because there was then no law limiting service time. In response to Hoover's lengthy tenure, Congress imposed a term limit of ten years (waived by the Senate for Robert Mueller on July 27, 2011). The current FBI director is Christopher A. Wray, who assumed his position on August 2, 2017.
When the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was established in 1908, its head was called the Chief of the Bureau of Investigation. It was changed to the Director of the Bureau of Investigation since the term of William J. Flynn (1919–1921), and to its current name when the BOI was renamed FBI in 1935.
|1||J. Edgar Hoover||July 1, 1935 – May 2, 1972||36 years, 306 days||Director of the FBI; died from a heart attack at his Washington, D.C. home on May 2, 1972; only FBI director to have died in office||Franklin D. Roosevelt; Harry S. Truman; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon Johnson; Richard Nixon|
|May 2, 1972 – May 3, 1972||1 day||Acting Director of the FBI||Richard Nixon|
|—||L. Patrick Gray
|May 3, 1972 – April 27, 1973||359 days|
|April 30, 1973 – July 9, 1973||70 days|
|2||Clarence M. Kelley||July 9, 1973 – February 15, 1978||4 years, 221 days||Retired||Richard Nixon; Gerald Ford; Jimmy Carter|
|—||James B. Adams
|February 15, 1978 – February 23, 1978||8 days||Associate Director of the FBI; Acting Director||Jimmy Carter|
|3||William H. Webster||February 23, 1978 – May 25, 1987||9 years, 91 days||Left the FBI to become Director of Central Intelligence; only person to have held both positions||Jimmy Carter; Ronald Reagan|
|—||John E. Otto
|May 26, 1987 – November 2, 1987||160 days||Deputy Director of the FBI; Acting Director||Ronald Reagan|
|4||William S. Sessions||November 2, 1987 – July 19, 1993||5 years, 259 days||Dismissed by President Bill Clinton||Ronald Reagan; George H. W. Bush; Bill Clinton|
|—||Floyd I. Clarke
|July 19, 1993 – September 1, 1993||44 days||Deputy Director of the FBI; Acting Director||Bill Clinton|
|5||Louis Freeh||September 1, 1993 – June 25, 2001||7 years, 297 days||Resigned||Bill Clinton; George W. Bush|
|—||Thomas J. Pickard
|June 25, 2001 – September 4, 2001||71 days||Deputy Director of the FBI; Acting Director||George W. Bush|
|6||Robert Mueller||September 4, 2001 – September 4, 2013||12 years||Term-limited; given extra 2 years||George W. Bush; Barack Obama|
|James Comey||September 4, 2013 – May 9, 2017||3 years, 247 days||Dismissed by President Donald Trump||Barack Obama; Donald Trump|
|May 9, 2017 – August 2, 2017||85 days||Deputy Director of the FBI; Acting Director||Donald Trump|
|8||Christopher A. Wray||August 2, 2017 – Present||4 years, 81 days||Donald Trump; Joe Biden|
- FBI Intelligence Reform Since September 11, 2001: Issues and Options for Congress
- 28 U.S.C. §532 note. Confirmation and Compensation of Director; Term of Service Legal Information Institute
- FBI Director: Appointment and Tenure Congressional Research Service
- "Senate Extends Term of F.B.I. Director". New York Times. 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-09-13.
- "The FBI Director: Background on the Position". Federal Bureau of Investigation. Archived from the original on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2011-02-07.
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