28 U.S.C. § 531
Section 531 · Federal Bureau of Investigation
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 13 court decisions — leading case 91 F. Supp. 2d 141 - United States v. Salemme (1999)
Most recently applied in Clinton Eldridge v. Catricia Howard (June 2023)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is in the Department of Justice.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Historical and Revision Notes
The section is supplied for convenience and clarification. The Bureau of Investigation in the Department of Justice, the earliest predecessor agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was created administratively in 1908. It appears that funds used for the Bureau of Investigation were first obtained through the Department of Justice Appropriation Act of May 22, 1908, ch. 186, §1 (par. beginning “From the appropriations for the prosecution of crimes”), 35 Stat. 236, although that statutory provision makes no express mention of the Bureau or of the investigative function.
Section 3 of Executive Order No. 6166 of June 10, 1933, specifically recognized the Bureau of Investigation in the Department of Justice and provided that all that Bureau's functions together with the investigative functions of the Bureau of Prohibition were “transferred to and consolidated in a Division of Investigation in the Department of Justice, at the head of which shall be a Director of Investigation.”
The Division of Investigation was first designated as the “Federal Bureau of Investigation” by the Act of Mar. 22, 1935, ch. 39, title II, 49 Stat. 77, and has been so designated in statutes since that date.