The facts
FBI co-deputy director Andrew Bailey announced Monday that he is leaving the bureau for personal reasons, the New York Post reported. The former Missouri attorney general will return to his home state a little more than a year after joining the Trump administration in September 2025.
"Under President Trump's leadership, we have delivered historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again," Bailey said in a statement posted on X. "With great pride in what we have accomplished, I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri."
FBI Director Kash Patel praised Bailey's "dedicated service to return the FBI to its core mission and fulfill President Trump's promise to make America safe again," adding: "Although Andrew is leaving the FBI in order to return to his family in Missouri, his fantastic contribution instituting critical reforms which resulted in our historic success will live on." A source told the Post that Bailey had difficulty settling in at the bureau and struggled with being distant from his family in Missouri.
Bailey joined two months after reports that then-deputy director Dan Bongino was weighing quitting over the Department of Justice's handling of its Jeffrey Epstein-related investigations; he served alongside Bongino for the next four months. The Post reports Bailey led a violent crime crackdown in St. Louis that netted more than 90 arrests, the seizure of three dozen guns and $310,000 in ill-gotten gains, according to the Missouri Times. He was also on the scene of the FBI's raid on a Fulton County, Georgia, election office in connection with the president's claims of voting irregularities in the 2020 electoral count. Before joining the FBI, Bailey had been a thorn in the side of the Biden administration, filing lawsuits over billions in attempted student loan forgiveness proposals and environmental regulatory issues.
Our take
Read Andrew Bailey's farewell and try to spot the accomplishment. "Historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again." What were they, exactly? His most famous hour at the bureau was standing on the scene while the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, investigating claims of voting irregularities in the 2020 election. An election that happened six years ago. America is now measurably safer from 2020, apparently, which is nice, because 2020 was a real motherfucker and it had it coming.
Before the FBI, Bailey's whole brand was being Missouri's attorney general and a thorn in the Biden administration's side, suing over billions in student loan forgiveness and environmental rules. Then he came to Washington to "return the FBI to its core mission," and the core mission turned out to be time travel. He served about thirteen months, four of them alongside Dan Bongino, who was himself reportedly ready to quit over the Epstein files, and now Bailey is heading back to Missouri because, per a source, he "had difficulty settling in at the bureau" and missed his family.
Kash Patel's tribute is the best part: "his fantastic contribution instituting critical reforms which resulted in our historic success will live on." Live on where, exactly? In Fulton County? At some point the bureau is going to run out of old elections to investigate, and then what will these people do with their mornings?
The violent crime crackdown in St. Louis that netted more than 90 arrests, three dozen guns and $310,000 in ill-gotten gains gets mentioned like an afterthought. Bailey led that before the big move to Washington, yet the farewell post on X skips straight to family time in Missouri instead of bragging about it. The real story is a guy who spent a year-plus chasing 2020 ghosts, struggled to settle, and decided the reforms could live on without him while he went home.
Bailey joined two months after Bongino reportedly weighed quitting over Epstein handling and served right beside him. Then Bailey himself posts the exit notice and calls the results historic. The source confirms the family distance was the issue all along. So the critical reforms that saved America from 2020 now get to continue without the man who showed up for the Fulton County raid. What a fucking tidy exit.
