FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau has fully cleared a DNA sample backlog that once exceeded 1.8 million, bringing the number to zero in under a year and a half.
The backlog consisted of DNA collected from federally convicted offenders, arrestees, and non-citizen detainees under the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005, a law requiring such samples be processed by the FBI Laboratory Division. Patel visited the Lab Division team over the weekend to mark the milestone, according to the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs.
In a statement provided to Breitbart News, Patel blamed the backlog on previous bureau leadership.
“This was yet another example of institutionalized bureaucracy from prior leadership that left crimes across America unsolved. When we got here, there had been a backlog nearly 2 million samples — literally breaking statutory requirements and hindering the FBI’s work — and we immediately got to work.”
The FBI receives roughly 50,000 new samples each month, according to the bureau. Those samples are processed into the Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS, where they can be matched against DNA collected from unsolved homicides, mass shootings, and sexual assaults.
Patel said the bureau responded by adding staff and technology.
“This FBI dedicated more resources, more equipment, improved IT systems, and used business analytics for DNA processing — and thanks to incredible work from our Lab team the backlog is officially at zero.”
In an earlier statement posted online in August, Patel put the backlog at more than 1.81 million samples and said it had been growing by about 75,000 samples a month. “DNA profiles belong in CODIS helping law enforcement solve crimes — not stalled in a government backlog,” he wrote at the time.
The FBI’s own fiscal year 2027 budget request confirms the backlog reached 1.8 million by the end of fiscal 2024, attributing it to a sustained rise in sample volume that outpaced the DNA program’s resources.
Patel cited the same figure in September during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, telling lawmakers the backlog had persisted for years before his confirmation and now stands at zero. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) referenced FBI data at the hearing showing criminal arrests up 80 percent and violent crime arrests up 90 percent since Patel took over.
The announcement follows other crime statistics the bureau has recently publicized. In August, the FBI reported that murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell an estimated 18.1 percent in 2025 — the largest year-over-year decline in violent crime since the agency began compiling national estimates in 1936.
