Andrew Bailey, Missouri hardly knew ye.

But what we saw of ye was plenty more than enough.

One of the most nakedly partisan attorneys general in Missouri history, Bailey has been tapped by President Donald Trump to become his quasi–number two man at the FBI. Bailey snagged his career vault solely by politicizing the power of his state law-enforcement office in Trump’s name.

Meanwhile, Governor Mike Kehoe announced today that former GOP House Speaker Catherine Hanaway — the only woman to hold that post — is his choice to replace Bailey as attorney general. That’s unlikely to sit well with many in MAGA world, a subject for later in this space.

For now, as I documented here, Bailey served a constituency of one and it paid off handsomely — one adoring, taxpayer-funded Trump press release at a time. Bailey didn’t limit himself to following the MAGA playbook like others at his craft; his degree of obsequiousness to Trump was enough to make a North Korean general blush.

Bailey’s rise is a cautionary tale. He succeeded not only because he advanced Trump’s agenda, but because of how he went about the task.

His was not a triumph of right-wing ideology. It was of style points, groveling, ruthless ambition, and a willingness to get down and dirty.

Bailey took a back seat to no one as a toady for Trump during the 2024 election campaign. That meant paying homage in a big way to the Big Lie that Trump was somehow robbed in 2020.

“The left stole that election by changing the rules of the game at the 11th hour. They’re going to try to steal this one by silencing our voices on big tech social media platforms, by stifling us in the mainstream media and by packing the polling places with criminal illegal aliens that shouldn’t be here in the first place.” — Bailey, May 14, 2024 debate in Springfield, MO

Most Republicans survived by nodding their heads at the falsehood needed to soothe Trump’s mental trauma over losing to President Joe Biden in 2020. Not Bailey. He went all in on the lie — and I suppose garnered some style points with that whole “packing the polling places with criminal aliens” sequel, which you didn’t hear every day.

Holding fast to the Big Lie wasn’t unusual. Doubling down with zeal four years later was quite another thing.

But Bailey goes big, just the way Trump likes it. When he attacked trans people as attorney general, he didn’t just check off a box — he went all in with the declaration that virtually all trans care was “an unfair, deceptive, fraudulent, or otherwise unlawful practice” for “any person or health organization” to perpetrate.

Bailey didn’t even limit that dripping bigotry to kids. He tried to include adults as well — not for any decent reason, but to get himself lambasted by the nationally respected Human Rights Campaign. Think Trump doesn’t go for that sort of thing?

It’s the pattern that Bailey followed throughout his tenure in office. He wasn’t satisfied to use the power of his office to attack DEI wherever he could detect it as some horrible virus.

Instead, Bailey would do things like falsely blame the Hazelwood School District’s DEI program for the off-campus assault of a student. When proven wrong, Bailey must have been smiling broadly to become the focus of a formal complaint about the behavior of his office.

He recused himself from a gambling lawsuit filed against the Missouri State Highway Patrol after PACs connected to the lobbyist of the companies suing the state wrote thousands in checks to the committee supporting his campaign, the Missouri Independent reported. Trump likes that sort of thing.

It was not his only brush with campaign violations. And Bailey was blasted by Clay County Judge Karen Krauser, who ordered Bailey to sit for a deposition after it was discovered he and a deputy met with a member of the Jackson County Legislature without the knowledge of the county’s attorneys. The county was a defendant.

Do you think Trump minds that he crossed the line with a judge?

Bailey has resisted releasing individuals whose convictions were overturned, even when new evidence supported their innocence. In the case of Sandra Hemme, a judge threatened to hold Bailey in contempt for instructing prison officials not to release a woman whose conviction had been overturned after she served 43 years.

If there’s any mitigating circumstance to Bailey’s tenure as attorney general, it’s that he’s not a good lawyer. In one of his first and most important cases, Bailey attempted to thwart the will of the people to keep off the ballot the 2024 constitutional amendment that eventually reinstated women’s right to an abortion.

That wasn’t remarkable. Bailey was expected by Republicans to fight the measure. They might not have expected his 6-0 thrashing before a moderately conservative Missouri Supreme Court.

Legal observers point to the astonishing number of losses he’s piled up. From mask mandates to social media censorship to his toxic emergency order declaring gender-affirming care as “experimental,” the list goes on.

But the point for Bailey was never about winning cases. It was about winning attention from the MAGA base and, above all else, Trump himself.

Just because a guy isn’t good at trying cases doesn’t mean he can’t be good at that.

Besides, Bailey is off to a new job as one of the very top officials of the FBI, the most important law-enforcement agency in the world. There, he won’t need to worry about trying cases — or losing them.

In fact, how he did in his previous work won’t matter at all. Although he had a fine career in military service, Bailey comes to the FBI with zero experience at the FBI or any police agency like it.

Zero. Unlike all the 38,000 men and women who serve today at the FBI. What could go wrong with any of that?

Nothing, apparently, if Andrew Bailey does what he does best.

Which is to keep Donald Trump happy.