As Kash Patel crashes out, Missouri’s former AG is primed to take over Trump’s FBI. Andrew Bailey’s reign would be cataclysmic

Art by Teddy Rosen

Andrew Bailey recently urged hospital executives at an American Hospital Association event to be prepared for the increasing frequency of cybersecurity attacks targeting healthcare systems. Bailey, co-deputy director of President Donald Trump’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), told the association to be wary of potential security breaches and urged members to share their cybersecurity data with the bureau in a bid to be proactive against threats from state actors like Russia.

Similarly, Bailey returned to his home state last week to participate in a roundtable discussion with state officials about security coordination during the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the games hosted by Kansas City during the global soccer tournament. Bailey appeared put together and focused, especially in his brief return to Jefferson City, where the roundtable discussion was held.

This is a very different persona Bailey offers compared to his tenure in Missouri as the state attorney general.

In my time covering Bailey during that tenure, he appeared as a flamboyant, hyperpartisan, and possibly Missouri’s most dedicated MAGA follower in an elected office.

When he announced his resignation in 2025 to join the FBI, he jumped at the chance. I wrote for The Pitch on Bailey’s ascension to the federal government, calling out his “desperation and ineptitude” to an audience of one: Donald Trump. Nonetheless, I’m surprised at what I’ve observed in the nearly seven months since Bailey’s relocation to our nation’s capital. The conduct demonstrated by the co-deputy director of the FBI, quite surprisingly, is not nearly the shitshow spectacle of his direct superior, Kash Patel.

Patel—a former federal public defender, legislative staffer, and conservative podcast host—has found himself in many recent situations that have led to critics, including those in his own party, to call into question his fitness to serve as a senior law enforcement executive at one of the most influential criminal investigative agencies in the U.S. Department of Justice.

More recently, The Atlantic ran an investigative piece by staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick alleging that Patel was often absent for unexplained reasons and was drunk on alcohol while on the job and in his official capacities. Fitzpatrick reports she spoke to colleagues of Patel’s at the bureau who recollected being “alarmed” at alleged excessive drinking and “freak-outs” over seemingly trivial things like forgetting his credentials to log on to the agency’s internal computer system. In this case, the report notes that Patel “panicked,” assuming that he was fired by President Trump for one reason or another.

In response to the Fitzpatrick column, Patel personally sued her and The Atlantic for a whopping $250 million, alleging defamation. The lawsuit is, for all intents and purposes, a long shot. Longstanding case law sets a very high standard for public officials to meet when alleging defamation by the news media.

Patel and his attorneys likely know this. Patel, an attorney himself, filed suit against a news magazine and a staff writer in a bid to intimidate. That is textbook suppression of speech by a public official and is therefore a violation of the First Amendment, which has broad protections for the press and news media. [That Patel and his team rushed to this response and have not considered what will need to be produced during the discovery phase is, well… MichalJacksonEatingPopcorn.gif to say the least.]

Case in point: Patel was handed another legal loss in a case against news pundit Frank Figliuzzi, a regular on MS Now program Morning Joe. Patel sued in a federal court in Texas, over Figliuzzi joking on air that the FBI director was more likely to frequent nightclubs than show up for work. The judge in the Texas case found that such a claim against Patel was not defamatory and was simply “rhetorical hyperbole.”

Patel is clearly crashing out.

Not since the rumors that J. Edgar Hoover was gay and a cross-dresser have we seen an active campaign of a sitting FBI director go ‘scorched earth’—using their pulpit to go after critics and political opponents. In the case of Hoover, those rumors remain disputed and a key to ongoing debate about the legacy of the longest serving director of the bureau.

With Patel however, you find a man in a bubble that will pop (unceremoniously) as it did for executive branch executives such as Pamela Bondi, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and dog-killer Kristi Noem.

Waiting in the wings is Andrew Bailey.

Don’t second-guess me, folks. I genuinely loathe Bailey. During his short time as our state’s chief law enforcement officer, he often pursued cases with little merit in state and federal courts across the United States. There is a well-documented record of his persecution of elected Democratic officials and entire groups of individuals he viewed as societal threats.

He instigated one of the most extreme legal campaigns against transgender people on the word of a discredited, transphobic activist-slash-Substack author.

He sued the state of New York in a bid to overturn criminal convictions levied upon President Donald Trump for his role in the hush money scheme surrounding adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels.

He sued Starbucks over the lack of white guy baristas, depicting the coffee chain as engaging in so-called “discrimination.”

Bailey sued Media Matters for America, a left-wing media watchdog group, for somehow committing “fraud” against Missouri advertisers and consumers by outing Elon Musk’s X as a far-right cesspool.

He fought to keep Marcellus Williams on death row in 2024, despite evidence that could have found him innocent. Bailey pushed for his death, regardless.

Bailey attempted to implement age verification requirements for pornography websites through unilateral rulemaking, circumventing the state legislature and the people’s will.

He provided legal cover for the Missouri-based mining company, Doe Run Company, in relation to an ongoing legal dispute over lead poisoning at facilities based in La Oroya, Peru.

I digress, though, without dismissing Bailey’s affinity for political theater. If I were President Trump, Bailey would be number one with a bullet atop a shortlist to replace Patel if the current incumbent proves too controversial, too ineffective, or simply steals too much of Trump’s beloved spotlight. [It can be all three.]

Politics has always rewarded those who wait for the right moment to step forward when others stumble. Patel is stumbling. Bailey is rehearsing. In Washington, D.C., timing matters as much as talent—and Bailey appears determined to make sure he’s standing closest to the door when it finally opens.

Michael McGrady Jr is a political columnist for The Kansas City Pitch.