17. Department of Justice · Major · Needs Congress
Seek legislation eliminating the FBI Director's 10-year term
Not started
Printed page 551 17. Department of Justice
“Submit a legislative proposal to Congress to eliminate the 10-year term for the Director. … the next conservative Administration should seek a legislative change to align the FBI Director’s position with those of the heads of all other major departments and agencies.”
What has happened
- Not started
No administration legislative proposal and no bill in the 119th Congress to eliminate the FBI Director's 10-year term (28 U.S.C. 532 note, Pub. L. 94-503) was found.
No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Negative search: a search of the 18,433 bills we keep and search, from congress.gov, for “FBI Director”, “Director of the Federal Bureau” and “term of the Director” found only the two resolutions on James Comey; a Federal Register full-text search for “10-year term Director Federal Bureau of Investigation” since 2025-01-20 returned none; a web search for “FBI Director 10-year term eliminate bill legislation 2025 OR 2026” surfaced only the 2011 Mueller extension and background pieces (a Lawfare backgrounder; CRS IF10651, which refused to open for us).
- Kash Patel was confirmed Director on 2025-02-20 for the statutory 10-year term; the term itself is untouched.
- Action
- eliminate
- Object
- 10-year term of the FBI Director
- ID
- 1538