FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed at a September 15, 2026 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the FBI runs NICS Monitoring to follow later background checks of people still legally able to buy firearms. Senator Ted Cruz asked if Gun Owners of America had uncovered tracking of eligible buyers suspected of crime, and Patel said yes.

AmmoLand journalist John Crump first reported an internal ATF document on April 26, 2021, and Gun Owners of America later obtained more files through records requests and court cases. ATF could ask the FBI to watch someone suspected of trafficking or straw purchasing; approved cases produced alerts on later NICS checks without notifying the buyer, even when the purchase was allowed and the person remained eligible.

Two days later ATF Director Robert Cekada posted on X that the program is not secret because he published a narrower ATF policy on NICS alerts in April 2025.