There’s a brand new co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. What do you imply you’ve by no means heard of a co-deputy director? Seemingly, neither has anybody else on the FBI. Nonetheless, Missouri Legal professional Basic Andrew Bailey can be becoming a member of the FBI to do the identical job, apparently, as the present deputy director, Dan Bongino. Is Bailey extra certified than Bongino to do that job? Probably not.
On Monday, Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel—each of whom are hilariously underqualified for his or her jobs as nicely—introduced that Bailey, a stalwart Trump sycophant, was being tapped as co-deputy. This function appears to be a brand-new invention, an try to both prop up or ease out Bongino, who has proved much less adept than Bondi and Patel at turning on a dime and discarding years of conspiracy theories about accused intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Poor dude appears to have believed that Trump would expose all of the supposed elite blood-drinking Democratic pedophiles. In fact, Bongino was already being a whiny little child about how un-fun it was that he needed to do his job.
Missouri Legal professional Basic Andrew Bailey, proven in January.
Relatively than telling Bongino to sack up or be fired, Trump as an alternative settled on the genius resolution of naming another person to the identical job. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t any rationalization in any way as to how job duties can be break up, and all we all know of Bongino’s emotions on the matter is a one-word put up on X, “Welcome.” However hey, there have been three American flag emojis as nicely, so perhaps Bongino is hyped to have Bailey watching over his shoulder.
Bongino’s earlier profession as a Secret Service agent, right-wing podcaster, and conspiracy theorist under no circumstances certified him to be deputy director of the FBI, a job that’s often stuffed by a profession staffer. Even Trump’s first-term deputy director decide after Andrew McCabe was pressured out in 2018, David Bowdich, had been with the FBI since 1995. However today, that’s method too certified. Whereas Bailey is a little more low-key in his have an effect on than Bongino’s sentient thumb-of-rage vibe, he’s no extra in a position to run the FBI.
Like Bongino, Bailey has by no means labored for the FBI. He’s been in quite a lot of state authorities roles in Missouri, together with counsel to the Missouri Division of Corrections, earlier than changing into the state legal professional basic in 2023. The New York Instances, in its ceaseless makes an attempt to make Trump’s actions look regular, has spun Bailey’s hiring like this: “Despite his bombastic attacks on Democrats, Mr. Bailey is a more conventional choice for the role than Mr. Bongino was, given his time in government.”
It’s not even clear what which means. Bongino had a authorities gig as nicely, so Bailey is simply one other dude with completely different irrelevant authorities expertise. This isn’t a lot of an enchancment. It’s only a solution to fake that this transfer is one way or the other typical when as an alternative it’s simply Trump piling one other subpar candidate onto the general public dime.
This should really feel like a little bit of vindication for Bailey, who apparently was handed over for the legal professional basic place now occupied by Bondi, and didn’t land the FBI director job he needed, both. Since hanging on the market, Bailey has been making an attempt to get observed by Trump. So he’s turned his state legal professional basic’s workplace right into a mini-DOJ, with rubbish like demanding Large Tech firms clarify why their chatbots weren’t good sufficient to Trump and suing Deliberate Parenthood over the abortion drug mifepristone. He should be so thrilled that his efforts have lastly borne fruit.
Bailey can now be part of the opposite extraordinarily meritorious Trump picks, like Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He can dangle with the near-infinite variety of Trump’s personal attorneys who’ve been rewarded with administration jobs. However he’s most likely crossing his fingers that he doesn’t find yourself with 4 completely different jobs like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
All the perfect individuals, on a regular basis.
