Andrew Bailey as he took workplace as Missouri state lawyer common in January, 2023.
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
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Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
In below three years, Missouri Lawyer Common Andrew Bailey constructed a monitor file for utilizing his workplace to oppose abortion although voters supported it, submitting lawsuits on culture-war points and defending Donald Trump.
Bailey was named a pair weeks in the past to be a co-deputy director on the FBI and is predicted to take workplace Monday. “My life has been outlined by a name to service, and I’m as soon as once more answering that decision, this time on the nationwide stage,” he mentioned in accepting the publish. He resigns his state place efficient Monday.
He’ll be entering into the FBI because it faces heavy turnover below President Trump and Lawyer Common Pam Bondi. The company faces accusations by Democrats of abusing its powers to punish Trump opponents and even some Republicans say it has mishandled details about the case of convicted trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
A adorned Iraq struggle veteran, the 44-year-old Bailey noticed a quick political rise together with roles as a prosecutor and as a counsel to a Republican governor. He was appointed lawyer common in 2023 and received re-election in 2024.
A quick rise and fast consideration
Early in workplace Bailey took on native elected officers, attempting to oust St. Louis Circuit Lawyer Kim Gardner for mismanagement — Gardner resigned — and St. Louis Sheriff Alfred Montgomery from workplace, an effort that is nonetheless pending.
Bailey additionally gained nationwide consideration when he sued Starbucks and IBM for his or her racial range initiatives. He assisted Elon Musk in his authorized marketing campaign in opposition to Media Issues, a left-of-center media watchdog group that was vital of Musk’s stewardship of X.
He sued the state of New York after a jury there convicted Trump of falsifying enterprise information. He alleged that the state was participating in election interference in opposition to Missouri.
Saint Louis College regulation professor Anders Walker mentioned Bailey had a knack for locating points that resonated with Missouri’s conservative voters.
Andrew Bailey is sworn into workplace as Missouri lawyer common in 2023.
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
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Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
“Actually with the ability of the federal authorities, he might decide up a few of these points, conduct investigations, use his new regulation enforcement capabilities to dig up grime tales on points he is already completed,” Walker mentioned.
Bailey, normally genial with the media, declined an interview via his state workplace.
Bailey fought in opposition to legalizing abortion in Missouri even after voters permitted it
After the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned the federal proper to abortion in 2022 Missouri imposed one of many strictest bans within the nation, resulting in a voter effort to legalize it.
Bailey argued legalizing abortion would value the state misplaced income in hypothetical taxes on individuals who wouldn’t be born. Missouri’s Supreme Courtroom dominated in opposition to together with that notice on the poll.
“That is an ideal encapsulation of the place politics has gone within the Trump period,” mentioned Democratic state Sen. Stephen Webber. “It is utterly official to have coverage disagreements and to have coverage debates, however they should be grounded in one thing. And that fiscal notice wasn’t grounded in something. It was purely performative.”
After voters legalized abortion, Bailey tried to require the enforcement of some legal guidelines remaining on the books that will have made it nearly inaccessible.
“His whole purpose right here was to sow confusion, to overturn the desire of the individuals and to not shield those that are most susceptible,” mentioned Margot Riphagen, the CEO and president of St. Louis-based Deliberate Parenthood Nice Rivers Motion. “So after I take into consideration what is going on to occur on a nationwide scale, it should be, you understand, 10 occasions worse. It is going to be precisely extra of the identical nationally.”
A highschool second: “I like to interrupt issues”
Former Senate President Professional Tem Caleb Rowden, a Republican, met Bailey when the long run lawyer common was nonetheless in regulation college. He mentioned he discovered Bailey to be a “likeable individual” who was keen to converse together with his political opponents.
“In immediately’s period the place you do must, I feel, in positions like that yell just a little bit louder at occasions, perhaps than you wish to, it is good to nonetheless be a likable human being and a real human being, which I feel most individuals assume he’s,” Rowden mentioned.
Webber, the Democratic state senator, first met Bailey when he was a youngster they usually crossed paths in the highschool debate circuit. He remembers when Bailey was requested whether or not he most popular to be on the affirmative or unfavorable facet of an argument.
“Plenty of children like affirmative as a result of you’ve your case written out and it is simpler,” Webber mentioned. “And Andrew Bailey mentioned, ‘I like unfavorable,’ after which he paused and mentioned: ‘As a result of I like to interrupt issues.'”
Jason Rosenbaum covers politics for St. Louis Public Radio.
