Andrew Bailey resigns as FBI co-deputy director after a year on the job

FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey is stepping down after just over a year to return to his family in Missouri, praising Trump-era results and Kash Patel’s reform push at the bureau.

Breitbart News reported that Andrew Bailey announced he is leaving the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s co-deputy director post and heading home to Missouri.

Bailey, the former Missouri attorney general and a Republican ally of President Donald Trump, framed the move as a family decision. He joined the bureau in a newly created co-deputy role in 2025 and served under FBI Director Kash Patel during a shift in leadership at an agency long treated as insulated from politics.

Reuters reported the resignation came Monday after little more than a year, roughly five weeks before the midterm elections, while Bailey helped oversee election-related investigations.

Bailey credits Trump, Blanche, and Patel for the chance to serve

Bailey posted the news on X and thanked the officials who brought him in.

In his statement, Bailey wrote:

"I want to thank President Trump, @AGToddBlanche, and @FBIDirectorKash for the opportunity to serve in the FBI. Under President Trump’s leadership, we have delivered historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again. With great pride in what we have accomplished, I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri. 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."

That message matches what he told the workforce: he was leaving for family reasons. The same public line ran through coverage from multiple outlets.

Attorney General Todd Blanche was among those Bailey singled out. Blanche has drawn attention in other settings for refusing a rote independence pledge and stating that Trump has not crossed a legal line, a stance covered in our earlier report on Blanche’s Meet the Press exchange.

Bailey’s exit also sits alongside other high-profile departures tied to Trump-era justice probes, including when Joe diGenova left a DOJ inquiry after months without charges.

Election work and a short, intense tenure

Bailey’s portfolio was not narrow. MS NOW Justice and Intelligence Correspondent Ken Dilanian wrote that Bailey had been overseeing election-related matters, among other duties, and that his workforce message cited family.

Reuters added that Bailey was present when agents seized 2020 election ballots from Georgia. That work came as the bureau faced continued scrutiny of election records under the new leadership team.

Fox News reported Bailey joined the co-deputy role in August 2025, served for a period alongside Dan Bongino, and left after about a year. Fox also carried Patel’s public thanks.

Patel wrote that although Bailey is returning to his family in Missouri, “his fantastic contribution instituting critical reforms which resulted in our historic success will live on.”

Patel’s own management style has already drawn document-based coverage, including FOIA records on directives about social-media critics. Bailey’s note cast Patel as the official who will keep driving reform, crime fighting, homeland defense, accountability, and public trust.

Anonymous claims about demotions surface beside the family explanation

Dilanian also relayed a separate claim from people familiar with the matter. He wrote that Bailey “was said to have been annoyed about the recent demotion of two senior counterterrorism agents in the Washington Field office” over their handling of an investigation into harassing phone calls to Stephen Miller’s wife.

That account is anonymous and unconfirmed by Bailey in the available statements. Bailey’s own words stayed on family, pride in results, and confidence in Patel. No official roster of the demoted agents, no final disposition of the harassment probe, and no full workforce memo text appear in the reporting package.

Still, personnel fights inside the FBI are familiar ground in Washington. Senate pressure over how the bureau handles sensitive files has flared before, including when Grassley accused the FBI of misclassifying Biden family investigation files to limit oversight.

The bureau has also shown a harder edge in recent political cases, such as when agents met Eric Swalwell at a San Francisco airport and seized devices in a federal probe. Bailey’s public farewell did not litigate those fights. It pointed back to results under Trump and continued reform under Patel.

What Bailey’s departure does, and does not, settle

Open questions remain. The precise hour of the X post is not locked down in every account. The “people familiar” speaking to NBC News and MS NOW are unnamed. Whether Bailey personally confirmed irritation over the Washington Field demotions is not established beyond the secondhand description.

What is established is simpler. A Trump-aligned former state attorney general took a new co-deputy post, worked election-related matters, praised “historic results,” thanked Trump, Blanche, and Patel, and said he is going home to Missouri for family reasons after a little more than a year.

The White House and FBI, in the Fox account, pointed back to those public statements rather than adding a separate narrative.

Family pulled a reform-minded deputy home to Missouri, and the work of rebuilding trust at the FBI stays on Patel’s desk.