How Many Federal Crimes Are There? Mike Lee Says, the Answer is ‘Unknown and Unknowable’

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) says the answer to the question of how many federal offenses are currently on the books is “unknown and unknowable” according to the Congressional Research Service.

Lee, in a post on X, said that when the agency whose job it is to answer questions like these is unable provide a definitive answer, Congress has lost control.

Q: How many federal criminal offenses are on the books?

A: The Congressional Research Service, whose job it is to answer questions like these, tells us the answer is unknown and unknowable—but it’s at least 300,000

Congress has lost control

This is a great post on this issue👇 https://t.co/bdvXgRfpb0

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) April 2, 2025

Lee suggests that the actual number of federal laws is likely at least 300,000 and shared a short video from Kite & Key Media that highlights the problem with innumerable ways to find yourself facing criminal charges.

In the video, viewers learn about a daring undercover operation by federal agents, requiring hundreds of hours of agents’ time and at a cost of $17,000 to the taxpayers in order to determine that the cats living at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida were doing just fine.

So why, exactly, were federal agents conducting surveillance of cats at a tourist destination?

According to the video’s producers, the law that sparked the investigation was one originally intended to prevent cruelty to animals at circuses or zoos.

The text of the law hadn’t changed over the years, but its interpretation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had.

Ultimately, the museum’s owners ended up spending more than $250,000 to defend themselves in federal court and having to install an electric fence in order to comply with safety regulations.

The point of the video is to illustrate how, even when someone isn’t doing anything that’s obviously wrong, there are still so many federal laws and agency interpretations of those laws that they may still be at risk of being charged with a federal crime.

The problem, according to GovTrack, is that Congress puts roughly 4-6 million words of new laws on the books every two years, and a lot of that legislation doesn’t clearly specify what the crimes are.

While Congress may pass the laws, they also pass the responsibility for how those laws will be applied to the various Executive branch departments and agencies charged with enforcing them.

This means that federal agencies are expected to provide the specifics and “regulatory guidance” as to how those laws are to be interpreted.

The resulting confusion and risk to otherwise law-abiding citizens is a prime reason that Sen. Lee has been calling for federal lawmakers to once again become accountable by passing Make Elected Leaders Vote Again (MELVA) and Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Acts.

These acts would prevent unelected bureaucrats from having the power to make rules that carry the force of law and would require bureaucrat-made laws be approved by elected lawmakers.

When the government itself can’t keep track of more than 200,000+ pages of federal regulations, it’s hypocritical to expect the average citizen to be able to do so.