最新杏吧原创

So naturally, Trump has tapped Bailey to help lead the FBI.

The administration鈥檚 announcement Monday it will hire Bailey as FBI co-deputy 鈥� to work alongside thoroughly unqualified fellow co-deputy Dan Bongino and report to thoroughly unqualified FBI Director Kash Patel 鈥� makes a certain amount of sense in the reverse-reality world of this president. For a chief executive who values single-minded sycophancy above all else, and ethics and competence not at all, Bailey is the perfect choice.

America鈥檚 loss is Missouri鈥檚 gain. Gov. Mike Kehoe announced Tuesday he will appoint to replace Bailey as attorney general. The Republican former Missouri House speaker was a moderating influence on her party two decades ago and then was a serious and competent U.S. attorney for the state鈥檚 Eastern District.

Fingers crossed: Perhaps the days of this important office being used as little more than a clearinghouse for frivolous culture-war lawsuits and MAGA publicity stunts are over.

Bailey is the third Missourian to be tapped for a major spot in the second Trump administration. The first two didn鈥檛 go well.

Former Missouri congressman Billy Long, who was never qualified to lead the Internal Revenue Service, was booted from its helm earlier this month after declining (to his credit) an improper demand by the administration to mine taxpayers鈥� private records. And Missouri political chaos-magnet Ed Martin鈥檚 stint as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., ended when it turned out he was too toxic even for Republican Senate leaders, forcing Trump to withdraw his nomination in May. Martin and Long both were shuffled off to less visible administration posts.

Bailey is, in his way, the most embarrassing representative yet for Missouri on the national stage. His eagerness to use government to harass and persecute any person or entity he deems 鈥渨oke,鈥� 鈥淒EI鈥� or insufficiently MAGA is, in a word, chilling.

The race-baiting undertones to much of his legal activism goes beyond familiar dog whistles 鈥� such as when he sued Starbucks for not having enough straight white male employees and when he altered a long-employed metric for reporting police traffic stop data in a way that makes it harder to identify race-specific trends.

As for carrying Trump鈥檚 water no matter the facts or propriety of the debate, Bailey has long been Trump鈥檚 man.

His lawsuit against New York state for criminally convicting Trump was virtually laughed out of the court system, of course, but as with so many of Bailey鈥檚 antics, the obvious point was to impress Trump. Bailey surely advanced that cause last month when he sent legal threats to top internet platforms because their artificial intelligence programs had given Trump a low ranking among presidents.

Andrew Bailey isn鈥檛 someone who is going to diligently uphold the law for the good of all Americans; he is someone who has repeatedly shown his willingness to pervert the law for the good of Donald J. Trump. It鈥檚 why he got the job.

If Hanaway does nothing but to avoid blatantly abusing the power of her new office, that will be a marked improvement upon her predecessor as Missouri attorney general. We鈥檙e hopeful she can actually do more than that bare minimum going forward; we鈥檒l have more thoughts on that soon.

For now, thank goodness Missouri finally has a capable lawyer rather than a MAGA culture-warrior representing our state in court.

And to the rest of America that now has to deal with Bailey, we can only say: We鈥檙e deeply sorry.