USA28 September, 20262 min read
Andrew Bailey Resigns As FBI Co-Deputy Director, Returns To Missouri Family
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Bailey resigns as FBI co-deputy director after about one year. Cites family reasons and will return to Missouri.
Bailey quits FBI role
Andrew Bailey resigned as one of the FBI’s two deputy directors after a little more than a year, and he said he was leaving to return to his family in Missouri. Bailey told the workforce that he was stepping down, and he wrote, "I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri," in a post on social media.
FBI Director Kash Patel thanked Bailey for his service and said Bailey’s departure would not end the bureau’s direction, after Bailey had served under Patel as co-deputy director. Bailey’s resignation also closed a leadership structure in which the FBI had a split deputy role, with Bailey serving alongside Christopher Raia after Dan Bongino left earlier this year.
Election probes and Georgia
Bailey helped oversee election-related investigations at the FBI, and he was present earlier this year when agents seized 2020 election ballots from Georgia. Bailey’s tenure included a raid at the Fulton County, Georgia, election office, where ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election were seized.
A federal judge in May denied Fulton County officials' request to force the FBI to return hundreds of boxes of ballots from the 2020 election that were seized earlier this year. Bailey’s resignation came as the FBI faced questions about how it handled sensitive investigations, including the election work that placed him in the middle of high-profile operations.
Leadership shakeup and timing
Multiple sources said Bailey’s resignation takes effect Oct. 2, and Bailey had told colleagues he was exiting to spend more time with his family.
CBS News reported that Bailey’s departure came shortly after two agents who oversaw counterterrorism at the Washington Field Office were demoted after Stephen Miller and Katie Miller complained the FBI was not doing enough to investigate alleged threats.
Bloomberg Law News said the resignation came three days after the bureau reassigned two senior counterterrorism supervisors over their handling of an investigation into allegedly harassing phone calls made to Katie Miller.
The FBI’s leadership transition left the bureau with Kash Patel continuing to run the agency while the deputy director functions shifted after Bailey’s exit, with no immediate successor announced in the coverage.