--- title: "The FBI’s co-deputy director experiment loses its second co-deputy" description: "Andrew Bailey, the Missouri AG hired to share a job invented for a podcaster, says he is going home to his family." author: "Nate Ledger" published: 2026-09-28T21:49:28.888Z modified: 2026-09-28T22:20:27Z url: https://rews.cc/a/the-fbi-s-co-deputy-director-experiment-loses-its-second-co--5663a4 language: en tags: ["fbi", "trump", "politics", "security", "bailey", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # The FBI’s co-deputy director experiment loses its second co-deputy *Andrew Bailey, the Missouri AG hired to share a job invented for a podcaster, says he is going home to his family.* By Nate Ledger · September 28, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/the-fbi-s-co-deputy-director-experiment-loses-its-second-co--5663a4 ## In brief - FBI co-deputy director Andrew Bailey resigned Monday after a little more than a year, citing family reasons - Bailey was hired as a “co-deputy” alongside Dan Bongino during a rift with Pam Bondi over the Epstein files - CNN reported Trump interviewed Bailey for FBI director in 2024 and passed on him for not being a “legal bulldog” - Bailey oversaw election-related probes and was present when agents seized 2020 ballots from Georgia - His exit comes about five weeks before midterms; FBI scrutiny has produced no evidence of widespread 2020 fraud Andrew Bailey, one of the FBI’s two deputy directors, told the bureau’s workforce early Monday that he is resigning to spend more time with his family, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. In a social media post confirming the departure, Bailey said he was returning to Missouri and touted “historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again” delivered on his watch. He had been at the bureau a little more than a year. To understand the job Bailey is leaving, you have to understand that the job did not really exist before he took it. The FBI’s deputy director position was historically a single post, filled by a career agent who ran day-to-day operations for a workforce of 38,000 people, and was traditionally apolitical. Last year, during a rift between then-deputy director Dan Bongino and former Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, the FBI hired Bailey — Missouri’s attorney general at the time — as a newly created “co-deputy” to Director Kash Patel, splitting the role with Bongino. Bongino resigned (in January, per the South China Morning Post’s report) and went back to conservative podcasting, replaced by veteran FBI official Christopher Raia, but the co-deputy model with Bailey continued as part of a three-person leadership team. Whether the bureau now returns to one career deputy is unclear, according to CNN. Bailey was not an obvious candidate to co-run anything at the FBI, at least according to the president. As CNN previously reported, he was under consideration to lead the bureau before Donald Trump’s second inauguration and interviewed with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2024, around the same time as Patel. Trump was not impressed, CNN reported, concluding that Bailey did not fit the mold of the legal bulldog he wanted at the FBI. Patel got the job; Bailey got the consolation structure. One source familiar with his departure told CNN that relations between Patel and Bailey cooled quickly after his arrival and the two were not close — which matters, because it was widely speculated inside the bureau that Bailey, whose portfolio included election security, would eventually be asked to take over from Patel. That never happened. What Bailey actually did at the FBI was largely election work. He helped oversee election-related investigations and was present earlier this year when agents seized 2020 election ballots from Georgia, according to the SCMP. The timing of his exit is therefore not nothing: he leaves about five weeks before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, with the Trump administration having mobilized federal law enforcement to investigate voting by non-citizens. The FBI has scrutinized election records from several states without producing evidence to substantiate Trump’s false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election. The public partings were warm, as the public partings always are. “I am confident Director Patel will continue to reform the FBI, combat violent crime, defend the homeland, ensure strong organisational accountability, and restore public trust in this institution of excellence,” Bailey wrote. Patel replied on social media thanking him for his service and for fulfilling the administration’s mandates. So the bureau that came into this administration with a director, a podcaster deputy, an ex-podcaster deputy, a co-deputy and a three-person leadership team may shortly have something closer to a traditional org chart, though nobody has said so. Bailey’s statement says he is returning to his family in Missouri, which is what the statement always says; the fuller picture is that a man hired to share a job created to manage someone else’s feud is walking away from it a year later, and the feuds remained in place the whole time. ## Sources - [One of Kash Patel's deputies resigns from the FBI](https://cnn.com/2026/09/28/politics/kash-patel-deputy-andrew-bailey-resigns-fbi) — cnn.com - [FBI deputy chief Andrew Bailey to resign after a little more than a year with agency](https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3369109/fbi-deputy-chief-andrew-bailey-resign-after-little-more-year-agency?module=top_story&pgtype=homepage) — scmp.com