FBI’s New Hire Is the Missouri AG Who Tried to Subpoena Abortion Patients’ Records

Andrew Bailey—Missouri's third AG in six years—also recently used the bogus far-right "study" about the abortion pill to sue Planned Parenthood.

By Lauren Tousignant | August 19, 2025 | 9:26am

Screenshot: YouTube/Attorney General Andrew Bailey Politics

FBI’s New Hire Is the Missouri AG Who Tried to Subpoena Abortion Patients’ Records

While I don’t personally believe in using a book written thousands of years ago to steer my moral compass, I totally understand why the Bible is the best-selling book of all time. It has compelling, death-defying characters; women impregnated by magic; animals outliving humans; and the writing evokes grand, dramatic images. Take the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Jesus unleashes four wild and foreboding horsemen upon the world, each one more sinister than the last. It’s honestly kind of hot. But in reality—or at least in the United States in 2025—it’s looking like the Four Horsemen are all going to be terrible white men who’ve previously served as Missouri attorney general.

In a press release on Monday night, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced he’d be stepping down from his position to take a job at the Justice Department—as the FBI’s new deputy co-director. Bailey’s short tenure has been marked by crusades against transgender children, opposing student debt relief, and unsuccessfully suing the Biden administration, claiming it colluded with social media platforms to censor Republicans. Real end times stuff.

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Most jarring of all, in April, Bailey subpoenaed the Missouri Abortion Fund in an attempt to get years’ worth of patients’ private records. (A judge temporarily blocked the move.) It’s part of his continued legal war on Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which he’s accused of trafficking minors out of state to get abortions. Even though MAF isn’t named in the lawsuit, Bailey’s office hoped to find communication between the Fund and PPGP. In July, Bailey also sued the entire Planned Parenthood corporation for “lying” to patients about the safety of the abortion pill, citing the bogus right-wing “study” that’s been amplified by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) for the last four months.

Bailey is Missouri’s third AG in six years. Before Bailey, Eric Schmitt was the attorney general of Missouri from January 2019 to January 2023, when he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator. During his tenure, he railed against the LGBTQ community, supported efforts to deny the 2020 election, amplified the “Great Replacement” theory, and made Missouri the first state to enact an abortion ban following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Before Schmitt, Hawley was Missouri AG from 2017 to 2019, before stepping down when he was elected senator. During his tenure, Hawley pushed abortion restrictions and was part of a lawsuit claiming the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. After survivors and advocates alerted him to the state’s backlog of 5,000 rape kits, he took credit for figuring it out. As a senator, Hawley wrote a book about “manhood,” and is using his position to push junk science in an attempt to get the FDA to ban the abortion pill. He’s overall one of the worst anti-abortion rodents in the country.

In Four Horsemen lingo, Hawley is an anti-abortion plague, Schmitt fired the first shot in the post-Roe war on abortion, and Bailey’s bringing famine because he’s forcing everyone to spend all their money on combating his laughable yet still terrifying lawsuits. Whenever the new Missouri AG (inevitably) steps down to take a bigger job, I guess that’ll be our final sign that the end is nigh. I give us a year.

Bailey wasn’t only tapped for the gig for his gross attacks on reproductive rights organizations (though I’m sure it helped!). Reports suggest he’s been hired as a slap in the face to the FBI’s current deputy, Dan Bongino, who’s having a tough time with how the White House is handling the Epstein files (or lack thereof).

Bongino is a former podcast host who became a far-right icon for pushing Epstein conspiracy theories, which, in part, is what helped him get his FBI job in the first place. But ever since the White House bungled whatever it is they have, Bongino’s been fighting with Attorney General Pam Bondi, posting vague social media messages, and, in July, reportedly threatened to quit. The New York Times reported that Bailey’s appointment to co-director “bewildered many current and former F.B.I. agents.” Can’t ever say being a far-right conspiracy theorist isn’t tough work.

“Thrilled to welcome Andrew Bailey as our new FBI co-deputy director,” Todd Blanche, the FBI’s deputy attorney general, wrote on Twitter on Monday. “As Missouri’s attorney general, he took on the swamp, fought weaponized government, and defended the Constitution. Now he is bringing that fight to DOJ.” Bongino simply quote-tweeted the post, writing “Welcome.” (not the period), followed by three American flags. The seething hatred would have been less obvious if he’d just written, hey, go fuck yourself.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe will name Bailey’s replacement at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. The state’s already unleashed three horrific Republican AGs upon the world, and the legend of the Four Horsemen promises the fourth will be the worst. And probably the most anti-abortion of them all.

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