Bongino’s Exit Leaves Andrew Bailey in a Powerful but Shadowy Role: Does Trump Have Bigger Plans for Him?

Daniel Bongino has left the FBI after just 10 months on the job, clearing the way for his former co-Deputy Director, Andrew Bailey, to become the bureau’s sole second-in-command — a quiet ascent to the top of one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world. But Mr. Bailey left a powerful elected office — attorney general of Missouri — to eventually become deputy to Kash Patel. The career move left political observers wondering what exactly President Trump has in mind for him. Like Mr. Bongino, Mr. Bailey assumed the FBI’s most demanding job without prior bureau experience. But the similarities largely end there. Mr. Bongino stepped away from his hugely popular podcast, “The Dan Bongino Show,” for a brief tenure at the FBI that was overshadowed by the Epstein investigation. For nearly three years, Mr. Bailey was Missouri’s tireless, if not controversial, state attorney general with a keen nose for culture-war litigation. Mr. Bailey’s investigations, which targeted the DEI policies of Fortune 500 companies and a St. Louis high school that was the site of a violent attack caught on video, appeared tailor-made for Mr. Trump’s attention. Perhaps most strikingly, unlike Mr. Bongino, who had used his “The Dan Bongino Show” podcast to voice what he saw as the Deep State’s efforts to thwart Mr. Trump, the former attorney general used his legal talents to land on the President’s radar. Eventually, those talents landed him in Mr. Trump’s administration.The deputy director of the FBI, Dan Bongino, center, at the Department of Justice on December 4, 2025, Washington, DC. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesBut Mr. Bailey, a disciplined and politically savvy state attorney, has since stepped away from his swift rise in Missouri politics for the shadows of federal power.“I think the Trump administration may be moving away from high-profile media entertainers to more serious career politicians, and that’s Bailey,” a Saint Louis University School of Law professor, Anders Walker, tells the Sun. In 2023, he went after St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner over what his office said were her failures to prosecute violent crime in St. Louis. Ms. Gardner resigned soon thereafter. He secured a grand jury indictment against St. Louis County Executive Sam Page for misuse of public funds and for violating election law.“He’s no-nonsense,” former Missouri Republican Party chairman John Hancock tells the Sun. “He is much more of a workhorse than he is a short-horse.”Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is walks back to his seat after being sworn in Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. AP Photo/Jeff RobersonHe sued Starbucks and IBM for their “discriminatory” DEI practices, accusing the former of allowing “employment discrimination, one of the most odious practices possible.”He sued the Biden administration in 2023, alleging it “unlawfully” approved the shipment of abortion drugs over the mail. He investigated the left-wing watchdog group Media Matters, accusing it of using “fraud to solicit donations from Missourians to bully advertisers into pulling out of X.” Media Matters challenged Mr. Bailey in court, winning a preliminary injunction and eventually reaching a settlement agreement with the attorney general.Mr. Bailey notably inserted himself into the case of Kaylee Gain, a St. Louis teenager who was violently beaten near Hazelwood East High School. He launched a controversial investigation into the school district’s “radical DEI programs,” which he publicly blamed for the attack.“He was willing to push the legal envelope in pursuit of his policy preferences. He was not always successful in court, but his efforts endeared him to the Republican Party’s MAGA wing,” University of Missouri Professor of Political Science Peverill Squire tells the Sun.Kash Patel and his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins at a wrestling match where she performed the National Anthem. InstagramThe Missouri attorney general’s office has become a reliable launching pad for higher office. The office has already propelled two of Mr. Bailey’s predecessors, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, to the U.S. Senate. Many believed Mr. Bailey was awaiting a similar political fate. In 2024, Mr. Bailey survived a formidable primary challenge from Will Scharf, who has since become Mr. Trump’s staff secretary. But despite Mr. Bailey’s conservative bona fides, near-term electoral opportunities in Missouri remain scarce.Messrs. Schmitt and Hawley are not up for reelection until 2028 and 2030, respectively. Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe, a Republican, can hypothetically serve until the end of his second term in 2032. “There’s a number of folks whose whole plan is to use the attorney general’s office to get to something else,” a former Missouri assistant attorney general, Elad Gross, tells the Sun.“I don’t know if Andrew Bailey’s got a dream of working for the FBI,” he adds.APresident Trump is handed an executive order by White House staff secretary Will Scharf (L) in the Oval Office of the White House on February 04, 2025. nna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesBut in August 2025, when he was seemingly at the top of his political game, Mr. Bailey joined the FBI. The move appeared, at first, to be abrupt. Mr. Bailey did not respond to questions from the Sun.“My life has been defined by a call to service, and I am once again answering that call, this time at the national level,” Mr. Bailey said in a statement at the time. “But wherever I am called, Missouri is and always will be home.”Mr. Bailey grew up in Columbia, Missouri, where he was vice president of Rock Bridge High School’s Teenage Republican Club. In 1997, he earned a distinction of excellence as a member of the school’s debate team.Missouri State Senator Stephen Webber, a Democrat, lived across the street from Mr. Bailey in Columbia and remembered him as an “absolute gun rights person” when both were teenagers. “He’s extremely conservative — one of the most conservative people we’ve seen in Missouri politics,” Mr. Webber told The Kansas City Star in 2023. Mr. Webber did not respond to interview requests from the Sun.Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (center) at an appearance on Capitol Hill in January. Kent Nishimura/Getty ImagesMr. Bailey attended the University of Missouri–Columbia on an Army ROTC scholarship. He completed two deployments in Iraq, earning several accolades, including a Combat Action Badge and two Bronze Star Medals. “I think the real Andrew Bailey is a fairly straight-laced, hardcore conservative, but otherwise reasonable and a good guy,” Mr. Walker tells the Sun. He notes that Mr. Bailey and his wife adopted their three children from foster care.Mr. Bailey was named co-Deputy Director in August amid reports that Mr. Bongino, having clashed with Ms. Bondi over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein investigation, was on the verge of quitting. Last year, the New York Times reported that Mr. Bailey was at one point considered “the only serious alternative” to then-nominee Kash Patel for the FBI director role, but “seemed too laid-back and lackluster in face-to-face meetings.”Since joining the bureau last summer, Mr. Bailey has operated in the shadows, far away from the harsh spotlight that has dogged Mr. Patel throughout his first year as Director. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel (R) appear during a news conference. Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesThe 45-year-old has earned unfavorable coverage over his frequent— yet legally mandated — use of the FBI’s Gulfstream private jet for personal trips to luxury locales and his fleet of armored BMW SUVs for official travel. Mr. Patel was criticized for touting on social media that a suspect in December’s Brown University shooting had been detained, only for that suspect to be released a short while later. Mr. Patel had made a similar announcement during the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into the Charlie Kirk murder, which he was also forced to walk back. A podcast featuring Mr. Patel and his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, that was released as the manhunt for the Brown shooter was still underway, did little to silence questions about his suitability for the job. Mr. Patel has also been the subject of anonymous leaks to the press alleging that he insisted Ms. Wilkins receive an extensive security detail.“Pam Bondi, who is another serious lawyer, may be tired of this,” Mr. Walker tells the Sun. “She may want someone like Bailey who can strum some of Trump’s favorite chords but at the same time is a straight-laced, reliable conservative, not a loose cannon,” he adds.A damning report from the National Alliance of Retired and Active-Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts said Mr. Bongino lacked a basic understanding of the law enforcement agency, with one anonymous participant describing him as “something of a clown.”President Trump poses with the FBI director, Kash Patel as he denied a report that he’s thinking of firing the embattled FBI director. The White HouseThe report added that Messrs. Bongino and Patel’s “unfortunate obsession with social media” was a sign that the two men were “too often concerned with building (their own) personal resumes,” according to the report. “I have little doubt that Bailey is more competent and capable than Bongino (and Patel as well) and more likely to be able to bend the FBI to carry out the President’s will,” Mr. Squire tells the Sun.While Mr. Patel’s job appears safe for now — he has told confidants that he expects to remain director until the 2026 midterm elections, according to The New York Times — Mr. Bailey may yet be waiting in the wings for his second FBI promotion in under a year. Observers say it’s a fine position for him to bide his time until the next right political opportunity presents itself in the Show-Me State.“Maybe at the end of the day, if he’s thinking he wants to come back to Missouri and run for something, then his saying, ‘I was part of Trump’s administration’ is a benefit to him,” Mr. Gross tells the Sun. On Sunday, Mr. Bongino celebrated his return to private citizenry by reposting doctored memes of him as a triumphant Russell Crowe in “Gladiator” and a euphoric Jon Hamm in the recent Apple TV+ program, “Your Friends and Neighbors.”In a post on a Sunday evening recently, ousted FBI employee Steve Friend commended the new Deputy Director for “simply not tweeting every hour like a Russian bot.”Mr. Bailey, meanwhile, has posted nothing at all. His X account has been quiet since last summer.

Bongino’s Exit Leaves Andrew Bailey in a Powerful but Shadowy Role: Does Trump Have Bigger Plans for Him?

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