Anyone can run a relay or exit node without asking permission. I've done both from a VPS with a complete anon account.
No arrests have happened thus far from a Tor compromise. Users usually slip up in their opsec and privacy in some other way.
Plenty of "illegal" services persist as tor hidden services, certainly not because the US intellegence allows it.
Claiming they can "shut it down" or "subvert it" just because they invented it, is like claiming they can do it to the Internet itself since thet also invented it.
