The Trump administration’s new pick for co-deputy director of the FBI, Andrew Bailey, brings more legal and managerial experience than current Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Bailey, who was resoundingly re-elected as Missouri’s attorney general last fall, says his focus is on “enforcing the laws as written” and “protecting the Constitution.”
But a top Senate Democrat and other critics say Bailey’s two-year tenure as Missouri’s attorney general was overly political and that he has a track record of aiding President Donald Trump politically while in office.
“President Trump is appointing a partisan politician," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement to NBC News. "Mr. Bailey is another Trump loyalist who has continuously peddled the ‘Big Lie,’ that the 2020 election was stolen."
“This appointment further proves President Trump will stop at nothing to politicize and weaponize the federal government’s most prestigious and powerful law-enforcement agency to protect his allies and punish his critics,” he said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi praised Bailey, a decorated Iraq War veteran, for his “expertise and dedication to service” in a statement to Fox News after his appointment last week. “His leadership and commitment to country will be a tremendous asset as we work together to advance President Trump’s mission,” she said.
But Democrats and the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have accused Bailey of filling lawsuits that highlighted culture war issues that had little to do with law enforcement in Missouri.
“For more than two years now, the state’s top lawyer has routinely used that perch to pursue frivolous and often deranged legal action designed to inflame his MAGA base,” the editorial board wrote last month. “He has improperly inserted his office into various national culture-war controversies.”
Bailey’s office in Missouri referred questions to the Justice Department. The Justice Department, the FBI and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump had considered Bailey as a potential nominee for attorney general or FBI director, The New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the meetings at the time.
Bailey, who is expected to take his new role in early September, previously was a general counsel for the governor of Missouri and for the Missouri Department of Corrections. He also was an assistant attorney general and a county prosecutor in Missouri.
A new position
Bailey’s appointment as co-deputy director was a surprise, in part because the position did not previously exist. The FBI’s leadership structure has been a single director, with a single deputy director who was a career agent. Now, Bailey and Bongino are set to split the No. 2 job.
Durbin criticized Trump's appointment of Bongino and Bailey, who have no prior experience in the FBI, calling it "an unprecedented move." He said a career FBI official should again be Deputy Director. “Prior to the current Trump Administration, the FBI Deputy Director has always been a career agent,” Durbin said.
A former senior Justice Department official supported the idea of two deputy directors, citing past reviews which said that the deputy director oversaw too many people.
But the former senior official, who asked not to be named, citing fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, said both should be career FBI agents with in-depth knowledge of the organization, something Bongino and Bailey lack.
“You could have two deputies, perhaps one over administration and one over operations,” said the former senior Justice Department official. “Both should be highly experienced career FBI officials.”
Bongino's future
The change to two deputy directors has also led to speculation among current and former FBI staff members that Bailey’s appointment is a sign that Bongino will soon leave, current and former FBI officials told NBC News.
Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who had been a pro-Trump podcaster before Trump chose him to be deputy director, clashed with Bondi over how the Justice Department has recently handled the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
In July, Bongino considered resigning over the issue after a heated confrontation with Bondi over his frustration with how the Justice Department has handled the Epstein files, according to a person who has spoken with Bongino and a source familiar with the interactions that Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel have had with Bondi.
“All the retired people think it shows Bongino” could be on the way out, said a former senior FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A current federal law enforcement official said it seems “clear as day” that Bongino, who has publicly spoken about the toll the job has taken on his family, would “transition” out of the bureau.
Former Justice Department and FBI officials say the Trump administration is reversing sweeping reforms enacted in the 1970s to make the bureau independent, nonpartisan and apolitical. The changes were spurred by decades of abuses by longtime Director J. Edgar Hoover, who meddled in politics, surveilled political groups and provided dirt on rivals to presidents.
The Trump administration has removed career FBI officials whom they apparently deemed not loyal enough to Trump from top leadership positions. They requested the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated Jan. 6 rioters and ousted the career official who tried to protect them. And they have flouted civil servant rules designed to make the bureau nonpartisan and protect agents from political retaliation.
Missouri tenure
In his time in office in Missouri, Bailey has aligned himself politically with Trump and his MAGA base, according to local news reports. Bailey was appointed attorney general in 2023 after his predecessor was elected to the Senate, and he was easily elected to a four-year term in November, defeating his Democratic opponent 60% to 40%. Critics accused Bailey of filing culture war lawsuits focused on issues outside Missouri.
Last year, Bailey asked the Supreme Court to stop a judge in New York from sentencing Trump after he was convicted of falsifying business records. “New York is working to hijack our national election and jail President Trump,” Bailey posted on X. “Missourians absolutely have an interest in ensuring that does not happen.”
He sued to block the Biden administration’s student loan relief program. He sued Starbucks to block its efforts to expand the diversity of its workforce. And he sued Facebook to force it to allow Missouri residents to have access to third-party moderation to avoid what Bailey argued was politically biased moderation by Facebook.
And last year he sued Planned Parenthood based on a video surreptitiously obtained by the right-wing group Project Veritas. Planned Parenthood said Bailey distorted the incident captured in the video and asked a judge to throw out the case, which is still pending.
Some of Bailey’s legal actions that relate more to the law enforcement efforts he will be involved in at the FBI have been criticized, as well. Last year, he tried to block the release from prison of Sandra Hemme, then 64, who spent 43 years in prison before a judge overturned her murder conviction.
The judge in the case criticized Bailey’s office, which was alleged to have told corrections officials not to release her. Hemme spent an additional month in jail but was freed after the state’s highest court ordered her release.
Separately, the state NAACP sued Bailey after he stopped including a “Disparity Index” mandated by a state law in an annual state report. The law was enacted after data showed that police pulled over Black drivers at a higher rate than white drivers and searched their vehicles more often, despite white drivers being found to have contraband more frequently.
The NAACP also claimed in the suit, which is still pending, that Bailey violated the state Sunshine Law by withholding documents that would shed light on how the decision was made.
Patel dismissed criticism of Bailey in a statement of his own to Fox News last week. He said the FBI "will always bring the greatest talent this country has to offer in order to accomplish the goals set forth when an overwhelming majority of American people elected President Donald J. Trump again.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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