|
Andrew Bailey was picked by Trump to serve as the co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for good reason: He is a Trump loyalist first and foremost. In May 2024, Bailey, then serving as the attorney general of Missouri, said the 2020 election was “absolutely stolen” from Trump and repeated Trump’s other lie that Democrats were “packing the polling places with criminal illegal aliens that shouldn’t be here in the first place.” Bailey has also targeted diversity programs in the Trumpian manner, suing businesses for recruiting non-white and female workers, and even condemned work his own mother did as dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Health Related Professions, where she recruited the school’s first diversity and inclusion officer and oversaw the Diversity and Inclusion Champion Professional Development and Certificate Program. Bailey’s office attacked that body of work, saying, “DEI programs that condition opportunity on skin color violate the Missouri Constitution and the foundational American promise of equality under the law.” Bailey has also been accused of antisemitism for suggesting that George Soros was responsible for Trump’s conviction in New York, fought overturning the false conviction of a Black man sentenced to be executed, and worked to overturn the conviction of a police officer who shot and killed a Black man after violating his Fourth Amendment rights. |
May 2024: Bailey Claimed That The 2020 Presidential Election Was "Absolutely Stolen” From Trump During A Candidate Forum. According to the Missouri Independent, "The two Republican candidates running for Missouri attorney general agreed this week that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, parroting claims spread by Donald Trump and his allies that have been widely debunked. Appearing at a candidate forum in Springfield on Tuesday, Attorney General Andrew Bailey and former federal prosecutor Will Scharf laid out their reasoning for why they believe Trump’s defeat in 2020 was illegitimate. Bailey said the presidential election was 'absolutely stolen.' 'The left stole that election by changing the rules of the game at the 11th hour,' he said. 'They’re going to try to steal this one by silencing our voices on big tech social media platforms, by stifling us in the mainstream media and by packing the polling places with criminal illegal aliens that shouldn’t be here in the first place.'" [Missouri Independent, 5/16/24]
May 2024: Bailey Said “The Left” Was Attempting To Steal The 2024 Election By “Packing The Polling Places With Criminal Illegal Aliens” And “Silencing Our Voice On Big Tech Social Media Platforms.” According to the Missouri Independent, "The two Republican candidates running for Missouri attorney general agreed this week that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, parroting claims spread by Donald Trump and his allies that have been widely debunked. Appearing at a candidate forum in Springfield on Tuesday, Attorney General Andrew Bailey and former federal prosecutor Will Scharf laid out their reasoning for why they believe Trump’s defeat in 2020 was illegitimate. Bailey said the presidential election was 'absolutely stolen.' 'The left stole that election by changing the rules of the game at the 11th hour,' he said. 'They’re going to try to steal this one by silencing our voices on big tech social media platforms, by stifling us in the mainstream media and by packing the polling places with criminal illegal aliens that shouldn’t be here in the first place.'" [Missouri Independent, 5/16/24]
2024: Bailey Attempted To Undermine A Ballot Initiative By Including “A Sensationalized Estimate Of Financial Damage” That Would Arise If The Initiative Passed. According to the Kansas City Star, "Ahead of a historic, citizen-led campaign to overturn the state’s abortion ban in 2024, former Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the two previous officeholders, tried to render the effort politically toxic. Ashcroft proposed incendiary language for the ballot question while Bailey tried to insert a sensationalized estimate of financial damage into the question that voters would have seen. The courts struck down both attempts, but the lengthy legal fights briefly delayed the campaign from collecting signatures. The measure ultimately reached the ballot and nearly 52% of voters enshrined abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution in November." [Kansas City Star, 10/16/25]
June 2023: A Judge Ruled That Bailey’s Attempts To Place Inflated Financial Damages On A Ballot Initiative Represented A “Failure To Perform The Ministerial Duty Imposed On Him.” According to KY3, "Cole County Judge Jon Beetem ruled Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has no authority to block the fiscal note of an initiative petition based on perceived issues with the state auditor’s findings. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case after Bailey refused to certify a collection of 11 fiscal notes compiled by Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick associated with 11 initiative petitions that would grant Missourians the right to abortion. In Missouri, before a petition can start collecting 170,000-plus signatures to amend the state’s constitution, the language of the ballot question needs to be checked and approved so voters fully understand the question before them. The auditor’s office also checks with state and local governments to show voters the full financial impact of the potential law in what’s called a 'fiscal note.' When Auditor Fitzpatrick reviewed the impact of each of the 11 petitions, his audits found that the impact of such an amendment would be minuscule. Attorney General Bailey disagreed, saying Fitzpatrick should inflate the estimated cost to more than $12 billion to account for a potential loss in federal Medicaid funds. It led to a stalemate, preventing supporters from beginning the signature-gathering process and prompting the ACLU’s lawsuit. In Beetem’s ruling Tuesday, he said Attorney General Bailey has no authority to reject the auditor’s report unilaterally and that doing so represented a 'failure to perform the ministerial duty imposed on him.' Auditor Fitzpatrick made clear in a statement he does not personally support abortion rights but that his duty to the office trumps his opposition to the issue at hand." [KY3, 6/21/23]
June 2023: Bailey Wrote In A Letter That Colleges Had To Adopt Race-Blind Criteria For Scholarships In An Expansive Interpretation Of The Supreme Court’s Ruling On Affirmative Action In Admissions. According to Chalkbeat, "Griffin, who is Black and hails from Jackson, Mississippi, chose the University of Missouri in large part because it offered him a scholarship that covered more than $20,000 a year in out-of-state tuition costs. Known as the Diversity Award, it’s a scholarship given to high-achieving students from racial or ethnic backgrounds that are underrepresented at the university. But last month, after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote in a letter that colleges there had to adopt race-blind criteria for scholarships following the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action, the university announced it would not offer scholarships like the Diversity Award to future applicants. When Griffin found out about that decision, he worried it could limit opportunities for students of color. 'It’s a really important scholarship for us,' said Griffin, a rising junior studying in the university’s top-rated journalism program. Without that aid, he said, he couldn’t have afforded to go to college outside of Mississippi: 'It puts us on that same playing field as our white counterparts.' The text of the Supreme Court’s ruling, released last month, is limited to college admissions and says nothing directly about scholarships. But some state officials and college leaders have interpreted the decision to include scholarships that consider a student’s race, too — a view some legal experts say could hold up in court." [Chalkbeat, 7/21/23]
April 2025: Bailey Attacked The Business Roundtable For Having DEI Initiatives, Calling Them “Blatant Racial Discrimination.” According to the Missouri Independent, "In April, Bailey excoriated the Business Roundtable for having 'racist DEI initiatives.' He wrote he would fight 'woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination.' In an impressive act of government 'jawboning' that Bailey has claimed to oppose in other contexts, he threatened that such policies 'risk exposing your organizations to substantial liability.'" [Missouri Independent, 8/4/25]
August 2025: Bailey Sued IBM For Doing “Too Much” To Recruit Non-White And Female Hires. According to the Missouri Independent, "Bailey is suing IBM, alleging the company did too much to recruit non-white and female hires. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (the 'DEI' much maligned by the far-right) help companies hire and retain qualified people who they wouldn’t easily find through traditional white male networks. Many studies and companies have explained that diversity is good for profits and innovation, and that you don’t get a diverse workforce without making an effort to recruit one. Bailey’s court filings come shockingly close to outright stating his contrary premise: women and non-white people are inherently inferior so any increase in their representation is bad." [Missouri Independent, 8/4/25]
August 2025: Bailey Launched Investigations And Lawsuits Against Missouri School Districts And Municipalities Over Alleged DEI-Related Discrimination. According to the Missouri Independent, "Bailey can burn up twice the Missouri tax dollars by having Missouri wage legal warfare against itself. See for example, Bailey’s investigation of the Hazelwood School District over an off-campus fight between students of different races, the three year lawsuit against the Springfield School District over demands to search thousands of documents for a list of possibly DEI-related terms that the District estimated would cost $170,000, or his new investigation of the City of Columbia over whether it might be trying to advance diversity and equity. " [Missouri Independent, 8/4/25]
February 2025: Bailey Filed A Lawsuit Against Starbucks Because The Company “Has Become More Female And Less White.” According to WSAZ, "The Missouri attorney general filed a lawsuit against Starbucks on Tuesday, alleging the company discriminates based on race and sex. The lawsuit, filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, alleges that Starbucks favors hiring women and people of color instead of hiring based on qualifications. ‘Starbucks’ U.S. workforce was 70.9% women and 28.4% men … In other words, since 2020, Starbuck’s workface (sic) has become more female and less white,' page 29 of the lawsuit reads.” [WSAZ, 2/12/25]
Bailey’s Mother, Dr. Jessica Bailey, Oversaw The Development Of A Diversity And Inclusion Champion Professional Development And Certificate Program At The University Of Mississippi Medical Center. According to the Missouri Independent, "Sometimes I wonder what Bailey’s mom thinks. I learned that Dr. Jessica Bailey was the first female dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Health Related Professions and a revered and beloved leader there — and a champion of diversity efforts. A 2022 article about her retirement describes Dr. Bailey’s mentorship and recruitment of the school’s then chief diversity and inclusion officer. In an earlier article, Dr. Bailey extolls that colleague for being 'committed to providing opportunities for students who might otherwise not imagine themselves in a health care profession,' and having 'the vision to recognize opportunities to make our health care work force be more representative of our Mississippi population.' These are goals that her son claims are unconstitutional and racist. During Dr. Bailey’s tenure as dean, she oversaw the development of a Diversity and Inclusion Champion Professional Development and Certificate Program. She supervised PhD theses concerning the need to diversify the health work force and bone marrow donors. She was lauded for her personal involvement in a program that recruited young Black men into medical professions.” [Missouri Independent, 8/4/25]
Bailey’s Office Said He “Has No Knowledge Of These Programs” But That “DEI Programs That Condition Opportunity On Skin Color Violate The Missouri Constitution And The Foundational American Promise Of Equality Under The Law.” According to the Missouri Independent, “I asked Bailey’s office whether the attorney general thinks his mother was engaged in illegal 'woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination' in general, or specifically with the mentorship program for Black men. His office responded: ‘Attorney General Bailey has no knowledge of these programs administered in another state, years ago, when he was not in office. What he does know is this: DEI programs that condition opportunity on skin color violate the Missouri Constitution and the foundational American promise of equality under the law. Whether it’s in corporate boardrooms, public universities, or government contracting, he will continue to fight race-based discrimination in any form. He has led on this issue since taking office.’” [Missouri Independent, 8/4/25]
March 2023: Bailey Called The Manhattan District Attorney Who Indicted Trump “Another Soros- Funded Prosecutor With Misplaced Priorities.” According to The Kansas City Star, "Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued statements this week blaming billionaire philanthropist George Soros for former President Donald Trump’s indictment Thursday by a New York grand jury. Their lines echoed statements that had already been used by a slew of prominent Republicans, including Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri and former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. […] ‘Yet again, another Soros-backed prosecutor uses the rule of law to serve his own political agenda, not justice,’ Parson posted on social media Friday, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who was investigating Trump over allegations of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Bailey, on Thursday, referred to Bragg as ‘another Soros- funded prosecutor with misplaced priorities.’” [Kansas City Star, 3/31/23]
September 2025: Bailey Used His Position As Attorney General Of Missouri To Intervene In Criminal Cases Against Donald Trump. According to The Daily Beast, "The 44-year-old Iraq war veteran repeatedly used his position in a Midwestern state to challenge the porn-star hush-money case in New York on the grounds that it constituted 'election interference.' He responded to Trump’s conviction for 34 felonies by announcing on X that he was suing the State of New York 'for their direct attack on our democratic process through unconstitutional lawfare against President Trump'. 'We have to fight back against a rogue prosecutor who is trying to take a presidential candidate off the campaign trail,' he further tweeted. 'It sabotages Missourians’ right to a free and fair election.’” [Daily Beast, 9/15/25]
July 2025: Bailey Investigated Tech Companies After Multiple AI Chatbots Rated Trump As The Worst Of Recent U.S. Presidents On Antisemitism. According to The Hill, "Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) is demanding information from several major tech firms with artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, which he alleges are distorting facts and producing biased results about President Trump. Bailey sent letters to Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta on Wednesday, asking whether they design their algorithms to disfavor certain political affiliations or policy positions and requesting internal records about how they select inputs for their AI models. He took aim at the chatbots’ responses to a question rating the most recent presidents on the issue of antisemitism. While Microsoft Copilot declined to respond, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta AI and Google’s Gemini all rated Trump last, which Bailey slammed as 'deeply misleading.' The Missouri attorney general is also requesting documents from the four tech giants about the design of their chatbots and why they ranked Trump unfavorably on the issue. 'We must aggressively push back against this new wave of censorship targeted at our President,' Bailey said in a statement. 'Missourians deserve the truth, not AI-generated propaganda masquerading as fact.'" [The Hill, 7/10/25]
July 2024: Bailey Opposed The Release Of A Woman Found Innocent Of Murder, Even Telling Prison Officials To Violate A Court Order By Refusing To Release Her. According to PBS News, "A woman whose murder conviction was overturned after she served 43 years in prison was released Friday, after Missouri's attorney general fought for more than a month to keep her behind bars. On Friday, Sandra Hemme left prison in Chillicothe, hours after a judge threatened to hold the attorney general's office in contempt if they continued to fight against her release. The judge originally ruled on June 14 that Hemme's attorneys had established 'clear and convincing evidence' of 'actual innocence' and overturned the conviction. But Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey fought her release in the courts. Attorneys for Hemme, 64, say they are thrilled. During a court hearing Friday, Judge Ryan Horsman said that if Hemme wasn't released by a designated time, he wanted Bailey himself to appear in court Tuesday morning. He also scolded Bailey's office for calling the warden and telling prison officials not to release Hemme after an appeals court panel said she could be released. 'I would suggest you never do that,' Horsman said, adding: 'To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.'" [PBS News, 7/19/24]
July 2024: Bailey Tried To Prevent A Black Man From Even Being Allowed To Present Evidence That Could Exonerate Him In Advance Of His Scheduled Execution Date. According to the Innocence Project, "Today, Attorney General Andrew Bailey of Missouri filed a writ of prohibition asking the Missouri Supreme Court to block the Circuit Court of St. Louis County from hearing the DNA evidence that proves Marcellus Williams’s innocence. The circuit court had recently scheduled a hearing for August 21 to assess the 'clear and convincing evidence' of actual innocence that led Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to move to vacate Mr. Williams’s wrongful conviction and death sentence. Despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence, Missouri has scheduled Mr. Williams for execution on September 24, 2024." [Innocence Project, 7/18/24]
2023: Bailey Filed A Brief To Overturn The Conviction Of A White Former Police Detective Who Shot And Killed A Black Man. According to KCVT5, "The Missouri State Conference of the NAACP and the Urban Council of Kansas City today condemned Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s request to overturn the conviction of a former KCPD detective in the 2019 death of a Black man. Bailey filed the brief Monday afternoon. Eric DeValkenaere was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action in the 2019 killing of Cameron Lamb. DeValkenaere was later sentenced to six years in prison. He has remained free on bond. The organizations said in a statement the Attorney General’s role is to act as a supporter of local prosecutors and protect citizens from fraudulent companies, not to 'interfere with and usurp the authority of local elected prosecutors to prosecute crime across the state.' They added that it is unprecedented for a state attorney to argue against the actions of a local prosecutor, and it’s unclear whether Bailey even has the authority to seek a reversal of a local conviction. 'This kind of unequal justice and ‘look the other way’ attitude toward the killing of black men is why the NAACP issued a travel advisory for Missouri in 2017, and it’s why we still strongly urge caution and vigilance when traveling in Missouri in 2023.' said Nimrod Chapel, Jr., President Missouri State Conference NAACP." [KCVT5, 6/28/23]
September 2024: A Federal Judge Ruled That The Officer Had Violated The Victim’s Fourth Amendment Rights When He Entered His Property Without A Warrant Or Other Legal Reasons. According to KCUR, "A former Kansas City Police detective violated a Black man’s constitutional rights when he entered his property and fatally shot him, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, opening the door for monetary damages in the family’s wrongful death civil suit. U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips ruled that Eric DeValkenaere, who is currently sentenced to six years in prison, violated 26-year-old Cameron Lamb’s Fourth Amendment rights when he entered his property without a warrant or other legal reasons. The ruling came in the $10 million civil lawsuit filed in June 2021 by Lamb’s mother, former partners and children against DeValkenaere and the KCPD Board of Police Commissioners. Phillips didn’t rule on damages, saying only that they are pending. " [KCUR, 9/18/24]
2024: Bailey Filed A Lawsuit Challenging The Safety Of Mifepristone. According to the Missouri Independent, "Hanaway stepped into the legal challenge to mifepristone first filed by her predecessor, Andrew Bailey. The federal lawsuit challenging the safety of mifepristone was taken up by the attorneys general of Missouri, Idaho and Kansas last year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the original lawsuit, saying the anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations in Texas who brought the original case didn’t have the standing to sue. The case was recently moved from a federal court in Texas to the eastern district of Missouri in St. Louis after a federal judge in Texas said he no longer had jurisdiction over the plaintiffs. A court date has not yet been set. Despite voters enshrining the right to abortion in the Missouri Constitution last year, medication abortion is inaccessible through Planned Parenthood clinics in Missouri." [Missouri Independent, 11/20/25]
2024: Bailey Attempted To Undermine A Missouri Ballot Initiative Adding Abortion To The State Constitution By Inserting A “Sensationalized Estimate Of Financial Damage” That Would Arise From Passing The Amendment. According to the Kansas City Star, "Ahead of a historic, citizen-led campaign to overturn the state’s abortion ban in 2024, former Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the two previous officeholders, tried to render the effort politically toxic. Ashcroft proposed incendiary language for the ballot question while Bailey tried to insert a sensationalized estimate of financial damage into the question that voters would have seen. The courts struck down both attempts, but the lengthy legal fights briefly delayed the campaign from collecting signatures. The measure ultimately reached the ballot and nearly 52% of voters enshrined abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution in November." [Kansas City Star, 10/16/25]
2025: Bailey Accused A Judge Of Abusing Her Discretion By Issuing A Temporary Injunction Against Anti-Abortion Laws In The State After Voters Approved An Amendment Adding The Right To Abortion To The State Constitution. According to the Missouri Independent, "Earlier this year, former-Attorney General Andrew Bailey accused Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang of abusing her discretion when she issued a temporary injunction that struck down several 'targeted regulation of abortion providers,' or TRAP laws, as unconstitutional under the reproductive rights amendment approved by voters in November. [...] The attorney general’s office in its appeal argued the TRAP laws should be re-enacted in part because they were not causing a high enough degree of 'irreparable harm.' The harm was only 'minor' because Missourians looking to end a pregnancy could instead travel to Illinois or Kansas for an abortion, the attorney general’s office wrote in court filings. The appeals court unanimously rejected Bailey’s argument on Tuesday, calling it 'disingenuous.' 'The irreparable harm flowing from a denial of abortion care within the confines of the Missouri (reproductive rights amendment) are unique because an abortion decision by an expectant mother ‘simply cannot be postponed, or it will be made by default with far-reaching consequences,’' wrote Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer, citing an earlier ruling by Zhang. The appeals court also found no proof of Zhang abusing her discretion, noting that she applied 'exhaustive consideration' to both sides’ arguments by conducting multiple hearings and sifting through hundreds of pages of written briefs over several months." [Missouri Independent, 10/14/25]
July 2025: Bailey Sued Planned Parenthood For Millions, Alleging The Organization Misled Consumers About The Safety Of Mifepristone, Sometimes Called The Abortion Pill. According to the Missouri Independent, "Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is suing the national Planned Parenthood organization over its claims regarding the abortion drug mifepristone. Bailey filed the lawsuit against the Planned Parenthood Federation of America on Wednesday in Cole County Circuit Court. The lawsuit argues Planned Parenthood’s national organization has misled consumers about the safety of mifepristone, which is used in a regimen with another drug to expel a pregnancy. The lawsuit seeks more than $1.8 million in civil penalties, up to $1,000 in damages or restitution for every Missouri woman Planned Parenthood provided abortion pills to in the past five years, reimbursement to the state for Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded emergency care resulting from abortion pill complications, and a court order for Planned Parenthood to stop certain advertisements for mifepristone." [Missouri Independent, 7/24/25]
September 2025: Bailey Tried To Block An Amendment To The State Constitution That Relaxed Some Restrictions On Abortion By Arguing The State “Would Lose Billions In Future Taxes From ‘Unborn Missourians.’” According to The Daily Beast, "Similarly, Bailey tried to block an amendment to the state constitution relaxing some restrictions on abortion by arguing that the state would lose billions in future taxes from 'unborn Missourians.' The amendment passed, though, and Bailey was still seeking to block it by other means when he stepped down to take the position with the FBI.” [Daily Beast, 9/15/25]