FBI Co-Deputy Director Andrew Bailey is stepping down after about a year, citing a return to his Missouri family and praising Trump-era bureau reforms.
Just the News reported that Bailey said Monday he is resigning from the agency and will go home to Missouri, framing the move around work completed under President Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Bailey held a newly created co-deputy director role. He joined the bureau in 2025 after leaving his post as Missouri attorney general and worked alongside then-Deputy Director Dan Bongino before Bongino left earlier this year.
In a post on X, Bailey tied the exit to family and to results he said the leadership team delivered on public safety.
Bailey wrote:
"Under President Trump’s leadership, we have delivered historic results in our mission to Make America Safe Again. With great pride in what we have accomplished, I am announcing that I am stepping down to return to my family in Missouri,"
He added that he expects Patel to keep pushing reform, fight violent crime, defend the homeland, enforce accountability inside the bureau, and rebuild public trust.
Bailey wrote:
"I am confident Director [Kash] 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."
An internal FBI email described the departure as driven by family reasons, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News, a detail carried in the Just the News account. Bailey’s own public message matched that line.
Fox News reported that Bailey announced the resignation on social media Monday, said he was returning to his family in Missouri, and had served in the co-deputy structure under Patel since August 2025. The bureau pointed to Bailey’s post as confirmation.
Patel publicly thanked him for the work. Patel wrote that Bailey’s “fantastic contribution instituting critical reforms which resulted in our historic success will live on,” and that his leadership “will be missed,” while adding gratitude that Bailey “answered the call to serve.”
That praise sits against a longer stretch of bureau change under Patel, including moves to downsize the FBI legal office as reorganization continued.
The Washington Examiner reported that Bailey’s departure as co-deputy director is effective Oct. 2, roughly a year after he joined Patel’s team. FBI spokesman Ben Williamson confirmed the exit on X.
Bailey again pointed to time with family in Missouri and described the tenure in positive terms tied to accomplishments under Trump. A source familiar with the matter rejected claims that frustration over personnel demotions drove the decision, calling that narrative “complete bulls***.”
Readers tracking FBI credibility fights will recognize the same institutional lane as coverage of declassified records on the bureau’s “Round River” operation and other internal controversies.
Reuters reported that Bailey is resigning after a little more than a year, is a Republican ally of President Donald Trump, and left the Missouri attorney general’s office to join the FBI. The account also noted he helped oversee election-related investigations under Patel and that the exit comes about five weeks before the midterm elections.
Bailey’s short Washington chapter fits a pattern of Trump-aligned figures who take hard assignments, deliver, and then step away on their own stated terms, similar in outline to other recent exits in which a former administration lawyer pushed back on pay-to-play claims after leaving public service.
Patel has also spent months batting down media narratives about his own schedule and decisions, including when he rejected a canceled Chicago trip report as false. Bailey’s clean family explanation and Patel’s public thanks cut against any attempt to cast this exit as a rupture.
Oversight pressure on the bureau remains active in Congress as well, including fights in which Sen. Chuck Grassley pressed for release of FBI documents he said were misclassified. Bailey’s resignation does not settle those debates; it simply removes one reform-minded deputy from the building on a timetable the bureau itself confirmed.
Bailey leaves with a stated record of results, a family reason on the record, and a director still tasked with finishing the cleanup. Taxpayers who want a bureau that answers to the law, not the last decade’s political habits, should judge the next phase by whether that work continues without delay.