From Missouri’s New AG to the FBI’s New Big Cheese, Everything Stinks

Catherine Hanaway was named Missouri's new attorney general, replacing Andrew Bailey, who's headed to the FBI, and continuing the state's long tradition of anti-abortion AGs.

By Danielle Han | August 20, 2025 | 6:09pm

Screenshots: YouTube

From Missouri’s New AG to the FBI’s New Big Cheese, Everything Stinks

It’s been less than 48 hours since Andrew Bailey stepped down as Missouri’s chief anti-abortion brute and took up his new position as the FBI’s co-second-in-command. But stepping into his shoes will be another anti-abortion ghoul, Catherine Hanaway, who once braved a sweltering heatwave to rally against reproductive rights. Yay!

“I have a long history of being pro-life,” Hanaway told reporters Tuesday, after Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe announced her as the state’s new attorney general. She asserted that while she’s “empathetic” to people struggling with infertility, she “believe[s] in the sanctity of human life.” (Rich words coming from the party whose policies have driven the state’s bottom-ranking maternal/infant mortality rates into obscurity.)

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In 2015, Hanaway was a GOP gubernatorial candidate when she made headlines for attending an anti-abortion rally outside a Planned Parenthood. “I want you to imagine, just for a moment, if the procedures described were being performed on puppies, America would be up in arms,” she told the crowd. “It’s time they were up in arms on behalf of the unborn.” (Again, rich words coming from the party whose Head of Medicare and Medicaid likes to torture dogs. And also whose Homeland Security Secretary likes to shoot them.)

Hanaway, who will be the state’s first female AG—and who will seemingly continue the tradition of Missouri AGs being against a woman’s right to choose—will take over on September 8. She’ll serve out Bailey’s term until 2028, and told reporters she plans to then run for a term of her own.

Now, for Bailey, who was tapped by the Trump administration to assist with the continued backlash from the botched Epstein files rollout. He was reportedly hired as a slap in the face to the FBI’s current deputy director, Dan Bongino, who’s been having a hard time with the fact that either there is no infamous Epstein client list, or that there is a list, but it doesn’t only implicate Democrats.

But, since Bailey has a track record of abusing his power to push his anti-abortion agenda, he’s sure to have terrifying plans for the country’s principal law enforcement agency.

“The FBI plays an important role in investigating instances of violence or harassment against abortion providers, so it’s critical that whoever oversees those investigations is committed to protecting patients and providers from violence and harassment,” Liz McCaman Taylor, Senior Federal Policy Counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Jezebel. “Any attempts by the FBI to skirt its responsibility under the rule of federal law is a failure to this country, and would embolden anti-abortion extremists hellbent on preventing people from accessing the abortion care they need.”

What’s especially concerning about this FBI version of Bailey is what he may do to the already-crumbling FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act, the policy meant to safeguard reproductive health providers from violence, threats, and obstruction.

After being inaugurated in January, Trump quickly pardoned violent anti-abortion activists convicted under the FACE Act, and announced his plans to limit the law, advising federal prosecutors to enforce it only under “extraordinary circumstances.” In June, GOP legislators put forward a bill to repeal the legislation altogether. “No one should fear for their life or safety when seeking or providing medical care,” the President and CEO of CFRR, Nancy Northup, said in a statement at the time. “We need FACE to be enforced and strengthened, not repealed.”

“Unless you have worked at an abortion clinic, you will never understand the terror we face on a daily basis,” Renee Chelian, Founder and CEO of Michigan’s Northland Family Planning, also said at the time. “My staff and I have survived multiple arson attacks, a chemical bomb, bomb threats, and death threats. Our patients have been blockaded from entering while needing immediate medical attention. My own children were targeted and terrorized. The FACE Act is one of the only tools to hold these criminals accountable.” So even if legislators are unsuccessful in repealing the law, there exists the possibility that Bailey could maneuver his way out of enforcing it.

Abortion Action Missouri further told Jezebel that Bailey’s big job annouement came just days after he suffered an embarrassing court loss in yet another one of his “frivolous” lawsuits against Planned Parenthood, in which he had alleged “Missourians shouldn’t have access to abortion pills” because “he didn’t want Missouri’s rates of teen pregnancy to continue to decline.” The reason, he had explained, was that high teen-pregnancy rates are good for the state’s “revenue and political representation.” Ew.

“After losing to Planned Parenthood in Missouri once again, [the] disgraced AG [has earned] a participation ribbon from the Trump Administration,” the group’s executive director, Mallory Schwarz, told Jezebel. “As obsessed as Bailey has proven to be with young girls’ bodies, I can think of no one more qualified to join the team tasked with burying the Epstein files.”

To put a cherry on top of a pile of bad omens, the FBI also apparently started boosting its presence in the St. Louis area on Wednesday, and Schwarz has since told Jezebel in a separate statement that “police operations over two of the three municipal law enforcement agencies whose jurisdiction covers recently re-established abortion clinics will report directly to the state.”

So, yeah, things are looking proper bad. But hey, at least Missouri’s got a new AG! Oh wait.

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