For the last year, <\/span>the FBI\u2019s co\u2013No. 2 <\/strong>has been an anti-abortion hardliner oddly preoccupied with the earning potential of aborted fetuses. Back when Andrew Bailey was still the attorney general of Missouri, he tried to thwart a pro\u2013abortion rights constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot by arguing<\/a> that \u201caborting unborn Missourians will have a deleterious impact on the [state\u2019s] future tax base.\u201d Later, in a lawsuit against the FDA over the abortion drug mifepristone, Bailey and other attorneys general claimed that telehealth access to abortion pills is \u201cdepressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers<\/a>,\u201d potentially leading to a \u201cdiminishment of political representation\u201d and \u201closs of federal funds.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As arguments against abortion go, these were \u201cabsolutely insane,\u201d one of Bailey\u2019s Democratic rivals for AG declared. But \u00adpronatalist-tinged lunacy is hardly disqualifying in today\u2019s GOP. In the summer of 2025, Bailey became co\u2013deputy director of the FBI, a position that gave him enormous power over the agency\u2019s operations\u2014including, potentially, investigations against abortion advocates, providers, and patients.\u00a0<\/p>\n But on Monday, in a sudden move that was no doubt deeply disappointing to his ultra-right allies, Bailey announced he is leaving<\/a> the agency at the end of the week. He reportedly told colleagues in an email that he needed to spend more time with his family and followed up with a post<\/a> on X.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n MS Now reported that Bailey was upset about the demotions<\/a> of two senior counterterrorism agents in the FBI\u2019s Washington field office, who were supposedly removed from their jobs because FBI leadership was dissatisfied<\/a> with their handling of a threat assessment involving harassing phone calls made to Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller. MS Now also said<\/a> Bailey was frustrated at not being named to replace Kash Patel as FBI director, \u201ca proposal once floated [after Patel] made numerous missteps and generated headlines that were unfavorable to the administration.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Even in the wake of his departure, Bailey\u2019s history of aggressive investigations into abortion providers in Missouri offers a chilling glimpse into what might happen at the federal level, as the Trump 2.0 administration faces growing pressure to ban or even criminalize medication abortion. Newly minted US Attorney General Todd Blanche has all but<\/a> confirmed<\/a> that a crackdown is coming, saying he would review the government\u2019s stance on enforcing the Comstock Act<\/a>, a 19th-century federal anti-vice law targeting \u201cobscene\u201d items sent by mail or any other means of shipping. Although it has long been dormant, Comstock was never repealed, and abortion opponents\u2014including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas<\/a>\u2014insist it remains the law of the land. Bailey\u2019s suit against the FDA claimed that allowing telemedicine prescriptions of mifepristone violates<\/a> Comstock, and he warned CVS and Walgreens<\/a> that they\u2019d run afoul of the statute by dispensing<\/a> abortion meds.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the FBI, Bailey was in a position to direct criminal investigations into the distribution of those medications\u2014whether prescribed by clinicians across state lines or mailed by human rights groups to patients. In March, a group of Senate Republicans urged<\/a> the FDA to work with<\/a> federal law enforcement agencies to clamp down on mail-order services selling mifepristone. That\u2019s exactly the kind of investigation the FBI would likely have overseen, said former federal public defender Peter Moyers, who represented a New York woman prosecuted<\/a> by the DOJ during the first Trump administration for selling abortion pills<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patel has expressed openness to criminal probes. During a September 15 hearing<\/a>, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley claimed that abortion-pill manufacturers are \u201cactively coaching\u201d people on how to use the mail and \u201cother means of communication and commerce\u201d to evade state abortion bans. \u201cWithout naming any of the companies\u2014I\u2019m not saying we\u2019re not [investigating] already\u2014but any use of the federal mail system is a federal crime that falls to the FBI to investigate, especially in conjunction with a violation of a state law that\u2019s already on the books,\u201d Patel said. \u201cSo we\u2019re committed to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Bailey didn\u2019t have<\/span> much of a public profile and had never run for office when, in 2022, he was\u00a0appointed to replace newly elected Sen. Eric Schmitt as Missouri\u2019s attorney general. The job has been a launching pad for many of the state\u2019s best-known conservative politicians, from former Gov. John Ashcroft (President George W. Bush\u2019s first attorney general) to MAGA showboat Hawley.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Bailey lacked the Ivy League pedigree of many members of the state\u2019s political elite, what he did share with other prominent Missouri conservatives\u2014including President Donald Trump\u2019s solicitor general, John Sauer; Trump White House counsel Will Scharf; and Ed Martin, the Stop the Stealer who helped write<\/a> the GOP\u2019s pro\u2013fetal personhood platform in 2024\u2014was an unwavering opposition to abortion. Bailey and his wife, Jessica, have four children, three of whom they adopted. In 2017, they lost a daughter who lived for only a few hours after birth. Bailey told<\/a> the Missouri Independent<\/em> that they\u2019d received a fetal diagnosis \u201cinconsistent with life\u201d early in the pregnancy but chose to continue it anyway. \u201cI have faith that God designs every human being in the womb,\u201d he said then.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also defended Missouri\u2019s 2022 abortion ban that allowed the procedure only in the case of medical emergencies. \u201cI want all kids to have an opportunity at life,\u201d he said, arguing that the ban was \u201cthe proper policy position to protect life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have faith that God designs every human being in the womb.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Nonetheless, based on his work in the governor\u2019s office, reproductive justice advocates had expected him to be \u201creasonable,\u201d says Katy Erker-Lynch, executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization PROMO. That assessment ended up being \u201cabsolutely wrong.\u201d Within months of taking office, Bailey was among the first red-state AGs to target providers of gender-affirming care, demanding<\/a> that they turn over unredacted medical records of transgender minors\u2014a move Trump\u2019s Justice Department would emulate<\/a> in 2025. He followed up by issuing an emergency rule<\/a> that would have drastically limited access to such care for patients of all ages, withdrawing it<\/a> only after the legislature passed its own ban on care for minors. \u00a0<\/p>\n His focus on abortion bordered on obsessive. In 2024, he joined a lawsuit by religious doctors against the FDA over its regulation of mifepristone\u2014a move that ended up keeping the litigation alive<\/a> after the Supreme Court ruled the doctors didn\u2019t have standing to sue. That same year, Bailey accused<\/a> a Kansas City\u2013area Planned Parenthood clinic of illegally \u201ctransporting\u201d minors to help them obtain abortions, citing a staged sting video produced by the far-right activist group Project Veritas. \u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, he fought ferociously to keep Amendment 3, a voter initiative aimed at enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, off the 2024 ballot, delaying the gathering of signatures and otherwise gumming up the process until even the GOP-dominated state Supreme Court ran out of patience. When he lost that campaign and voters went on to repeal Missouri\u2019s abortion ban by a 52 to 48 percent<\/a> margin, he litigated aggressively<\/a> to keep restrictions in place, while accusing<\/a> the state\u2019s Planned Parenthood affiliates of providing medication abortions when they were not. Those efforts to subvert the amendment ultimately failed, despite a new state law that gave him special powers<\/a> to intervene when courts blocked laws, and abortions have resumed. Now Missouri conservatives are trying<\/a> to overturn the 2024 vote with their own ballot measure, also called Amendment 3, this November.<\/p>\n In one of his final anti-abortion initiatives as AG, Bailey sued<\/a> the national office of Planned Parenthood for false advertising<\/a>, arguing that it made misleading claims when it said that medication abortion is safer than Tylenol. Florida\u2019s AG followed<\/a> with a similar suit a few months later. Both cases<\/a> remain active.<\/p>\n Records and internal correspondence obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight<\/a> show that some of Bailey\u2019s strategies may have come directly from anti-abortion organizations. For example, his claims that repealing Missouri\u2019s abortion ban could lead to billions in lost tax revenue and federal funding echoed comments submitted to the state auditor\u2019s office by Missouri Right to Life and the Heritage Foundation. Missouri Right to Life\u2019s director also sent the Project Veritas sting video to Bailey\u2019s office. Two years before Bailey filed the false advertising suit, his office received a memo from Students for Life of America<\/a> outlining how state consumer protection laws could be used to attack access to medication abortion. Students for Life is now pushing<\/a> the DOJ to revive the Comstock Act.<\/p>\n In response to questions about whether Bailey was present when Students for Life met with<\/a> DOJ officials in May, the FBI said Bailey oversaw \u201ca wide range of operational matters and interacts with a spectrum of stakeholders,\u201d adding that he has \u201cdedicated his career to upholding the constitution and enforcing the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Bailey\u2019s efforts on <\/span>abortion didn\u2019t distract from his fealty<\/a> to the broader MAGA cause. He secured<\/a> a \u201chistoric\u201d $24 billion default judgment against the People\u2019s Republic of China, among others, for misleading the public about supposedly starting the Covid pandemic, a legally pointless case he inherited from his predecessor, Schmitt. (China is now countersuing for $50 billion.) He tried to investigate<\/a> the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for reporting on extremist content on Elon Musk\u2019s X but was halted by a court. In a move that seemed calculated to prove his bona fides as a potential Trump attack dog, he sued<\/a> the state of New York in the summer of 2024, arguing\u2014unsuccessfully\u2014that its prosecution of the once and future president for hush money payments to Stormy Daniels improperly interfered with Trump\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n After Trump\u2019s victory, Bailey was reported to be on the short list<\/a> to head the DOJ but, according<\/a> to The<\/em> New York Times,<\/em> was deemed to be \u201ctoo laid back\u201d and \u201clackluster\u201d for the president\u2019s tastes. He lost out first to former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz\u2014who was forced to withdraw after sex trafficking and drug allegations proved unacceptable even to his former congressional colleagues\u2014and then to ex\u2013Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. (Gaetz has denied the allegations against him.) Back in Missouri, Bailey doubled down on the kinds of cases sure to keep him on Trump\u2019s radar, suing IBM<\/a> over its diversity policies and Starbucks<\/a> for allegedly discriminating against straight white men. IBM settled; Starbucks won a dismissal.<\/p>\n Eight months into Trump\u2019s second term, Bailey finally got the nod to join the FBI as co\u2013deputy director. It\u2019s not clear why he was plucked for that role; what does seem clear is that far-right podcaster and ex\u2013Secret Service agent Dan Bon\u00adgino\u2014who\u2019d been doing the job solo for a few months\u2014needed some adult supervision. (In response to questions for this story, the agency said Bailey\u2019s \u201cexperience conducting complex investigations at the state level informs his management\u201d in his FBI role.) After Bongino quit<\/a> last winter, complaining about his long hours, career agent Christopher Raia<\/a> became Bailey\u2019s co-deputy.<\/p>\n In contrast with Patel, Bailey rarely made headlines in his FBI role. One notable exception was the agency\u2019s raid<\/a> in January on the Fulton County, Georgia, election office at the center of conspiracies<\/a> around the 2020 election. Bailey, who has peddled<\/a> election denialism, personally oversaw the raid, alongside then\u2013Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Two Democratic senators called their presence during the search \u201cunprecedented<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The timing of Bailey\u2019s resignation seems especially odd given his role in overseeing election-related matters at the FBI during the critical midterm elections. The<\/em> Wall Street Journal<\/em> noted<\/a> that Bailey is stepping down amid massive staff turnover and other turmoil at the nation\u2019s most important law enforcement agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUnder President Trump\u2019s leadership, we have delivered historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again,\u201d Bailey wrote on X. \u201cI 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.\u201d In his own post<\/a>, Patel said Bailey\u2019s \u201cfantastic contribution instituting critical reforms\u201d to the bureau \u201cwill live on.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing to suggest that Bailey\u2019s departure will deter abortion foes from continuing to press the Trump administration from clamping down on abortion pills. Federal agencies have a host of laws to weaponize should they decide to come after providers, including Comstock or even the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act<\/a>, according to Rachel Rebouch\u00e9, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n Senate Republicans have called on federal agencies to work together to stop pills from coming into the country and being mailed between states, an effort the FBI typically would coordinate via a task force. Meanwhile, other diehard abortion opponents have been moving into influential positions in the administration, including pro\u2013fetal personhood lawyer Josh Craddock at the DOJ\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel and Dr. Heidi Overton, Trump\u2019s new pick<\/a> to lead the FDA. No one expects any big moves from the administration on the abortion front before the midterms. Then all bets are off.<\/p>\n A version<\/a> of this story appeared on<\/em> Autonomy News<\/a>, a worker-owned publication covering reproductive\u00a0rights and justice. Follow <\/em>Autonomy News on<\/em> Instagram<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> Bluesky<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> TikTok<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> Threads<\/em><\/a>, and<\/em> LinkedIn<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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