The FBI has struggled in recent months, but with Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey joining the leadership team, things are about to get worse.
Yes, it’s weird that the FBI will have two deputy directors. And yes, it looks like Dan Bongino’s troubled tenure at the bureau is ending.
But let’s not brush past the scope of Missouri AG Andrew Bailey’s hyper-partisan radicalism as he joins the FBI leadership team. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-08-19T13:04:13.845Z
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/move-install-new-fbi-co-deputy-director-radical-ways-one-rcna225779
In a normal administration, the FBI has a director and a deputy director, with the latter helping to oversee day-to-day operations at the bureau.
The Trump administration, however, isn’t normal at all, which helps explain why the FBI will, at least for now, have two deputy directors. The New York Times reported:
The Trump administration said on Monday that it had tapped the Missouri attorney general, Andrew Bailey, to be a deputy director of the F.B.I., in what many rank-and-file agents described as a surprising arrangement. Mr. Bailey would join the current deputy director, Dan Bongino, who as a popular right-wing podcast host repeatedly railed against the bureau, in overseeing the day-to-day operations of the agency.
As the bureau struggles with abuses, misuses, purges and Trump-era politicization, there are three elements to this worth keeping in mind.
The first is that this new arrangement is bizarre. In fact, the Times’ report noted, “
The appointment of Mr. Bailey bewildered many current and former F.B.I. agents, who said they had never heard of a co-deputy director.”
The second is that this appears to signal the beginning of the end of Bongino’s tenure. When Donald Trump tapped him for the FBI leadership post in March, it was immediately recognized as a ridiculous choice: Bongino, a right-wing provocateur and podcast personality, was spectacularly unqualified. Five months later, it’s clear that he hasn’t enjoyed the job.......
But perhaps most striking of all is the administration’s newest hire.....
This is the same far-right lawyer who wanted then-President Joe Biden to be criminally prosecuted for his student loan debt forgiveness policy. He also launched an investigation into Google, alleging that the tech giant was secretly conspiring to suppress conservative views, which dovetailed with a related investigation into AI chatbots that Bailey said were too anti-Trump.
Bailey has even fought to keep exonerated prisoners behind bars, while pushing weird ideas to advance his anti-abortion agenda.
Put another way, under Kash Patel, the FBI has struggled. With Bailey joining the bureau’s leadership team, it’s likely to get worse.
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