Comey faces complicated path under Trump administration

The term of the FBI director is set at 10 years as an affirmation of the bureau's political independence, and some other chiefs including Robert Mueller, Comey's predecessor, have served presidents of both parties.

[...] Comey would be in the delicate position of working with a president who lobbed occasional criticisms from the campaign trail against the nation's premier law enforcement agency.

Though attention had centered on whether Comey could have co-existed with a Hillary Clinton presidency, given the FBI's investigation into her email practices and his own public statements about the probe, that question applies at least equally to a Trump administration.

[...] his stated desire to have an improved relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin comes even as federal intelligence officials have publicly accused the Russians of meddling through hacking in the American electoral process.

Though the White House has not always endorsed his positions and Obama last week appeared to frown on Comey's public statements on the Clinton email matter, there have been no overt signs of the personal animus that's sometimes marred the relationships between other presidents and FBI directors.