Who is the boss of the Director of the FBI?

Factual Questions
1

I have Googled this and it is weirdly difficult to find.

For instance:

28 U.S. Code § 532 - Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation says:

“The Attorney General may appoint a Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

So the Attorney General (AG) right?

But I cannot think of an FBI director who wasn’t appointed by the president.

Then it also seems the director of the FBI reports to the Director of National Intelligence.

So, who is the boss?

2

The FBI is an agency of the Department of Justice. The director of the FBI reports to the Attorney General who runs the DoJ. The AG reports to the President. It doesn’t matter who appoints the FBI director; in practice the president appoints FBI directors with the consent of the Senate.

The FBI director does not report to the Director of National Intelligence. The DNI heads up a committee of agency bosses known as the Intelligence Community and serves as the principal intelligence advisor the the President.

3

The Director of the FBI is appointed by the president, and confirmed by the Senate. However, he reports to the Attorney General, who is effectively his boss.

Many Executive Branch positions below the level of Cabinet Secretary are appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. However, these people report to the head of their particular Departments, who is their boss.

4

Interesting.

So what does Title 28 mean that I cited above? Is it a relic superseded by something else now or am I misreading it? Something else?

5

The key word here is may. Maybe not if the POTUS wants to appoint the Director. It’s called politics, the words are vague and leave openings for other things. Perhaps a future President doesn’t care who the director of the FBI is or feels that it would be better to have the AG appoint one for some political purpose.

6

Actually the 1966 law linked in the OP was superseded by the 1968 Omnibus and Safe Streets Law.

Note that Hoover was still the director while they were tinkering with all this - he didn’t leave the position until his death in 1972.

7

That part of the code appears to date to the 1930s, when the FBI was established under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, and revised in 1966. (Hoover was first appointed as head of the FBI’s predecessor in 1924.) It’s likely that at some point between 1966 and Hoover’s death in 1972 it was changed to be a direct appointment by the President rather than the AG. The first FBI director to be appointed by the President was Hoover’s successor Patrick Gray, and the term was limited to 10 years.

ETA: As muldoonthief’s cite shows, the change was made in 1968.

Hoover was so powerful that he effectively had a lifetime appointment from 1924 through his death in 1972.

8

I wonder how pertinent the “chain of command” is to our Federal government at that level?

I also wonder whether it is especially pertinent (or not) with this particular or recent Administrations?

9

It’s very pertinent within every administration.

10

Good answer! Bad question!!

11

Didn’t the FBI get rolled into the bundle with a bunch of other agencies when the Department of Homeland Security was created?

12

No, as stated in the second post, it remains part of the Department of Justice. The Director does, however, report both to the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is an independent agency and not part of any of the federal executive departments.