Will the FBI retaliate against Trump?

[The_Doctor]

Is the Pope Catholic?

[The_Doctor]

The FBI doesn't do political retaliation in that overt sense. But what they can and will do is make life harder for Donald Trump. Our national security and law enforcement agencies are political, especially when it comes to dealing with Congress and the President. The FBI agents may not do much but the political advocates and the higher up appointees may take political actions, e.g, leaking, and looking a little harder on certain aspects of Trump's dealings.

Here's a good example. Every year, the DoD does political advocacy for its budget items. The generals go to Capitol Hill, lean on the Senators and Congressmen and have their priorities ready. Technically, they're not supposed to do this. They're supposed to let the Secretary of Defense advocate for them (and he does). But they do have their ways of pushing Congress' buttons. Routinely, the agencies fight huge battles with Congress and the Administration sometimes to preserve their projects.

in short, if you're high up in Washington, you play the political game, and you surely most definitely have an agenda. This is not new - this has been part of Washington since J. Edgar Hoover sat down as FBI Director. If you believe that the FBI Director, the CIA Director, or any of these high up agency heads don't have an agenda ... you're wrong.

This is why Presidents don't screw around with the natsec establishment and the law enforcement establishment. Going to war with these two groups is not considered a good idea.

Does anyone remember when Colin Powell introduced Bill Clinton to the undercarriage of the bus on gays in the military, because the military wasn't ready? Bill Clinton had to walk back it, and do DADT, because the military threw its weight around. Technically, they weren't supposed to ... he is the commander in chief. But hey, they had an agenda.

EDIT: Comey's leaks are definitely being done with the sanction of the upper management of the FBI, most likely. The agents leaking all over the place is definitely a political move to put the president on defense. That's the power game and that's also, not coincidentally, one of the parts of Washington Trump least understands.

[The_Doctor]

This book has a lot to say about this topic. And yes, it was written in the 1980s. Yes, that's in the heyday of the Reagan era. Here's the NYT review of that book.