ELI5: What discourages corruption in the FBI?

Like most conspiracy theories, it takes too many people when it gets large enough to be effective, or at least to more than a to a minor level. An FBI agent would have to convince his boss, and his boss too, to go along with it. Or the other way going down. That is very difficult in the real world. Someone doesn't shut up, someone says something wrong, there are checks on factuality and honesty at each level, someone doesn't agree with what is trying to be done, the nature of the legal system is more about what you can prove vs. what you find out, people blab while drunk,…

No question an isolated FBI agent could mess with someone's life in a very serious way but it would be very difficult to enlarge that vindictive behavior more than, at most, a very few levels. There are checks on such things.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread