FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey announced Monday he is stepping down to return to his family in Missouri. He has served just over a year as one of the bureau’s two co-deputy directors.
“With great pride in what we have accomplished, I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri,” Bailey said in a X post.
Bailey joined the FBI in September last year after resigning as Missouri attorney general. The Missouri attorney general’s office announced on August 18, 2025, that he would resign effective September 8 that year to take the federal job, and Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office named Catherine Hanaway to succeed him as attorney general the next day.
“I want to thank Andrew Bailey for his dedicated service to return the FBI to its core mission and fulfill President Trump’s promise to make America safe again.”
FBI Director Kash Patel thanked Bailey on X, responding to his X resignation statement.
“Although Andrew is leaving the FBI in order to return to his family in Missouri, his fantastic contribution instituting critical reforms which resulted in our historic success will live on. Andrew’s leadership at the FBI will be missed but we are grateful he answered the call to serve!,” Patel added.
In Mississippi on October 30, 2025, Bailey joined FBI Jackson Special Agent in Charge Robert Eikhoff and U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner at a press conference in Oxford. The FBI arrested 14 current or former local law enforcement officials accused of taking bribes to protect a drug-trafficking conspiracy and charged them along with six other people as co-conspirators.
The bureau at the time seized more than 600 boxes of Fulton County’s 2020 election records on January 28, 2026, after obtaining a warrant signed by a magistrate judge.
An affidavit supporting the warrant said investigators were examining possible irregularities in the 2020 count. It cited missing ballot images, duplicate ballots, tabulator tapes, absentee ballots that had not been creased or folded, and the audit conducted after the election. The affidavit presented those as investigative allegations, not established facts.
One election-security expert who submitted a declaration for the county disputed the affidavit, saying it omitted information and mischaracterized common election practices.
Fulton County officials asked a federal court in Atlanta to return the records about a week after the seizure. On May 6, 2026, the court denied the request. The judge concluded the county had not shown the government had callously disregarded its rights and noted the county kept copies of the documents.
In Florida on June 26, 2026, Bailey appeared alongside Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier at a press conference. Bailey said the previous administration’s use of the autopen freed a violent offender. He added that the bureau led a 2023 investigation of the man and works closely with state and local law enforcement in Florida to hold such offenders accountable.
In his post, Bailey praised the administration’s record and the FBI’s work under Director Kash Patel. He thanked President Donald Trump, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Patel for the opportunity to serve.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, we have delivered historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again,” he added.
