FBI Co-Deputy Director and former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is leaving his post to spend more time with his family.
Bailey announced his departure in a post on X on Monday.
According to two people familiar with his departure, Bailey had also been annoyed by the recent demotions of two senior counterterrorism agents in the FBI Washington field office. MS NOW reported that the two veteran supervisors were removed from their jobs because FBI leadership was dissatisfied with their handling of a threat assessment involving harassing phone calls made to the wife of White House official Stephen Miller.
The two people told MS NOW that Bailey was also frustrated at not being named FBI director, a proposal once floated to him after Kash Patel had made numerous missteps and generated headlines that were unfavorable to the administration.
On its Rapid Response account on X, the FBI said the claim that Bailey was annoyed with the demotions was “false” and that “he supported those moves.”
In his post on Monday, Bailey thanked President Donald Trump, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Patel, adding, “I am confident Director Patel will continue to reform the FBI, combat violent crime, defend the homeland, ensure strong organizational accountability, and restore public trust in this institution of excellence.”
Patel responded on X, saying, “Andrew’s leadership at the FBI will be missed but we are grateful he answered the call to serve! Thanks Andrew for your tremendous dedication to the mission of this FBI.”
In August 2025, the Trump administration announced that Bailey would become co-deputy director alongside Dan Bongino, who left his role last year. Bailey resigned as Missouri attorney general effective Sept. 8, 2025, and was sworn in at the FBI on Sept. 15.
For the past year, Bailey has been tasked with overseeing election-related investigations and was present in Fulton County, Georgia, in January when FBI agents seized ballots there.
The two veteran agents who were demoted were members of the Washington field office’s counterterrorism section, which had been asked to conduct a threat assessment on a person believed to have been making harassing phone calls to Miller’s wife, conservative podcaster Katie Miller. The demotions were first reported by Bloomberg News.
The unusual request was greeted with disdain inside the FBI, the sources said. “Harassing phone calls aren’t even in the ballpark of terrorism unless an actual terrorist is doing the dialing,” said one former FBI official briefed on the matter.
Darren Cox, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, insisted that the decision to demote the two seasoned FBI agents did not come from the top.
“Director Patel did not order this decision. This was a personnel decision made at the Washington field office level alone based on our constant evaluation of mission needs,” Cox said. “Any suggestion otherwise is false.”
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