bailey, andrew A g mizzou
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BAILED WHY? 9 26? GT CONSPIRACY FAIL?
MERRI OK
RAGA
MIZZOU AG OFFICE FULTON FUCKERY PAXTON BIG LIE SAUER ALBUS
MILLER AM 1ST LEGAL
FBI DEP DIR UNDER KASH?! GA BALLOTS
ED FUCKING MARTIN
LEO PRIMARIED BAILEY FOR SCHARF 2024
WILL SCHARF WH COUNSEL SINGER VULTURE TAG LEO $ HERE CORKERY
ERIC SCHMITT? SEN MIZZ MOFO
PAXTON KOBACH
MUSK?
SEE LEGAL SUPPRESSION. PRESS SUPPRESS
SUPPORT DISINFO ~ bd SIO STANFORD?
On July 4, a federal judge issued an injunction in Missouri v. Biden, barring the federal government from contacting platforms and asking to remove misinformation.COVID VAX
see heartbeat abortion vs const amendment
partner in crime with Landry LA RAGA doughty vulnerability to 5th circuit ALITO
bench slapped by acb
bizzare he is leo target, went after drag and social media bias BS
tracy beANZ?
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National outlets reported tension with FBI Director Kash Patel. People close to Bailey describe him to me as miserable in the job, iced out and unable to get much done. His one high-profile moment came in Fulton County, Georgia, where he was on hand as agents seized 2020 election records.
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PENSION?
DCK 10 26
Missouri Attorney General
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey Announces Resignation In Order ...
Before serving as Missouri's Attorney General, Andrew Bailey served as an Armored Cavalry Officer in the United States Army, Assistant Attorney General, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, and General Counsel for the Missouri Department of Corrections and the Missouri Governor's Office.
stlpr.org
Andrew Bailey won't rule out another run for office in Missouri | STLPR
Oct 6, 2026Bailey would likely be a formidable candidate if he chooses to run for office. He easily defeated Will Scharf in an expensive and contentious GOP primary for attorney general before prevailing over Democrat Elad Gross in the general election.
Missouri Independent
Former Missouri AG Andrew Bailey makes appearance in Columbia after ...
Oct 7, 2026Andrew Bailey, the former Missouri attorney general who left his post at the FBI last week, told fellow Republicans Tuesday night that he vowed to continue holding wrongdoers, whether criminal or political, to the letter of the law. "The cornerstone of prosperous communities is the criminal ...
News for ANDREW BAILEY MISSOURI GOP
After FBI exit, ex-Missouri AG forms anti-abortion group with Hawley ties
7 days ago
The Kansas City Star
Josh Hawley, Andrew Bailey join ad battle on Missouri's Amendment 3
3 days ago
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Andrew Bailey is back in Missouri and talking like a candidate
7 days ago
Daily Journal Online
New nonprofit pours $2.9M into campaign to reinstate MO abortion ban
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STATES N
Andrew Bailey has been back in Missouri for about two weeks, and he already has a message.
Speaking to a recent gathering of Boone County Republicans, the former attorney general said there’s “a real disconnect right now between where the people are and where some of our leadership is.” He said lobbyists and political consultants are interfering at the Capitol. He said it’s time to take power from “the moneyed interests” and return it to voters.
It’s the easiest pitch in modern politics. The people in charge are the problem, and I’m not one of them.
But it’s a strange pitch coming from Bailey.
He didn’t reach statewide office by beating Jefferson City. He was appointed by it.
Former Gov. Mike Parson, a man who spent decades in elected office and whose comfort in the Capitol’s culture became a common knock against him, picked Bailey for attorney general in 2023.
His 2024 political operation was built with substantial help from Steve Tilley, the former House speaker turned lobbyist and consultant who helped Bailey raise money and whose network of PACs poured cash into his campaign and allied committee. And as attorney general, that money caused Bailey headaches and inspired accusations about whether it shaped his office’s actions.
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/07/10/judge-orders-missouri-ag-andrew-bailey-to-be-deposed-over-possible-ethics-breach/embed/#?secret=44ZnWQ74cf#?secret=QE8fIx6wpr
None of this is a new observation. It was the entire case against him in the 2024 Republican primary. Will Scharf spent the campaign arguing Bailey was a creature of Jefferson City. Voters disagreed. But the man who ran as the establishment’s choice two years ago is now running against it.
Or not running. Bailey keeps saying he isn’t running for anything.
The speech in Columbia sounded otherwise. He talked about gas prices, data centers, transmission lines and the county jail. He said he was “energized” and planned to travel the state. Several people in the room left convinced he is eyeing a comeback. His allied PAC still has more than half a million dollars in the bank.
Then there is the question of why he came back.
Bailey told the crowd he “stepped down on my own” from the FBI, that his wife told him to come home and that it was good to be back. Everyone close to Bailey will tell you how big a part of his life his family is. There’s no reason to doubt it played a role.
But it was not a triumphant year in D.C.
National outlets reported tension with FBI Director Kash Patel. People close to Bailey describe him to me as miserable in the job, iced out and unable to get much done. His one high-profile moment came in Fulton County, Georgia, where he was on hand as agents seized 2020 election records.
That fits. In Columbia, Bailey was still warning that blue states are “lying, cheating and stealing elections.” He offered no evidence. There isn’t any. Georgia’s 2020 presidential ballots were counted three times, including once by hand, with each count confirming the result. Courts likewise rejected efforts to overturn the outcome.
Which leaves the bigger question.
In November 2024, voters gave Bailey a four-year term as attorney general. He left after eight months. He lasted about a year at the FBI. If at some point he asks for four more years, somebody should ask him what the over-under is.
Friendly voices in Jefferson City political circles have been floating him as a future statewide candidate for months. The Missouri Times, a website owned by longtime Bailey booster Scott Faughn, covered his return like a homecoming. Its editor, posting from the Columbia event, referred to Bailey as “the war hero from Hermann.”
The Jefferson City insiders who helped build Bailey’s political career are clearly glad to have him back. Bailey would probably prefer you didn’t notice.
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an 2 26
Fulton County, Georgia, has hit back against the Trump administration following the controversial election center raid last month, with Politico's Josh Gerstein reporting that a revised filing from the county accused the government of being "woefully short" on evidence of wrongdoing and violating the Constitution.
Near the end of January, FBI agents raided an election center in Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, and a major focal point for Donald Trump's false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election. Agents gathered various records from the building, including 2020 ballots, as part of an investigation into long-debunked allegations of fraud in the state, which went for Joe Biden by a slim margin in the 2020 race. Critics have also alleged that the raid is intended to fabricate a pretext to allow the federal government to interfere with Georgia elections.
The county has since taken the administration to court over the incident, demanding that they return the ballots seized last month and accusing it of pushing through with the operation despite having no evidence of wrongdoing. A revised filing from Tuesday afternoon made that argument clear, as Gerstein explained in a post to X.
"Revised Fulton County demand for return of 2020 ballots seized by FBI calls evidence 'woefully short' of showing probable cause that a crime was committed," Gerstein wrote. "County says actions would have to be willful to be crimes & no claim/proof of that."
Within the new filing, the county alleged that the sworn affidavits submitted by FBI agents claiming there to be probable cause for the raid were lacking actual evidence, despite a judge later signing off on a warrant for the operation. It also accused the government of violating Fourth Amendment rights against "unreasonable search and seizure."
"In seizing Petitioners’ property by relying on a warrant that was entirely devoid of probable cause, Respondent callously disregarded Petitioners’ rights underthe Fourth Amendment," the county's petition argued. "This flagrant constitutional violation compels immediate equitable relief from this Court—namely, an order requiring Respondent to return Fulton County’s original election records, as well as any copies."
In response to another X user, Gerstein noted that "probable cause to believe a crime was committed" is necessary to get a search and seizure warrant.
Legal experts have previously weighed in on these affidavits after they were unsealed, expressing befuddlement as to how a judge could have signed off on a warrant in response to them. David Becker, the founder and director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told CNN last week that there was "nothing" in them that showed probable cause.
"I have no idea how it was signed off on," Becker said. "When I heard they were unsealing the affidavit, I was actually expecting — even though we knew there would be no actual reality of a crime there, those ballots have been counted multiple times — but I was wondering what the administration would use that was new, that would justify these claims... There was no allegation of intent, which is a necessary element of the crime. In fact, they admit there's no intent that's evident at all."
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WIKI 10 26 NO TALK
Andrew Bailey (born 1981)[1]^ is an American attorney and politician who served as Co-Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2025 to 2026. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Missouri Attorney General from 2023 to 2025.
During his tenure as attorney general, Bailey adopted hardline conservative positions. He refused to release prisoners after overturned convictions, attempted unsuccessfully to restrict gender-affirming care, battled initiatives that restored access to abortion in Missouri, and staunchly defended Donald Trump over his legal problems.[2]^ Bailey was announced as co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on August 18, 2025 and was sworn on September 15.
In September 2026, Bailey announced that he would resign as the co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[3]^
Early life and education
Bailey grew up in Columbia, Missouri,[4]^ and Gluckstadt, Mississippi.[5]^ He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Missouri while on an Army ROTC scholarship.[6]^ After graduating from the University of Missouri, he was deployed to Iraq during the Iraq War.[7]^ Bailey earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri School of Law.[8]^
Bailey was serving as general counsel of the Missouri Department of Corrections before joining the office of Governor Mike Parson as deputy general counsel.[8]^ In 2021, he was appointed as Parson's general counsel.[8]^
Attorney General of Missouri (2023–2025)
Bailey as attorney general
In November 2022, Parson appointed Bailey as the 44th attorney general of Missouri, after his predecessor Eric Schmitt's election to the U.S. Senate.[8]^ He took office on January 3, 2023.[7]^ As attorney general, Bailey moved aggressively to expand his powers and used his post to pursue conservative "culture war" issues.[7]^
Throughout his term, Bailey faced a number of controversies regarding his use of power. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch maintains The Bailey Tally, "[a] running count of the many instances in which Missouri's official lawyer has abused the legal process, refused to do his job and/or engaged in blatant conflicts of interest, all in service to a right-wing agenda."[9]^
Bailey's office saw high turnover, with 1/3 of budgeted positions vacant in 2024. Staffing inconsistencies led to extreme delays for open cases and were criticized by fellow Republicans in Missouri Legislature, and were compared to Bailey's own criticisms of former St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner.[10]^
Opposition to overturning convictions and judicial response
Bailey faced criticism over refusing to overturn miscarriage of justice cases, even when local prosecutors present evidence suggesting that a convicted person is in fact innocent. In the case of Sandra Hemme, who served 43 years of a life sentence prior to her sentence being overturned in June 2024,[11]^ Bailey's office attempted to circumvent the order to release Hemme. On July 19, Judge Ryan Horsman threatened to hold Bailey in contempt if Hemme was not immediately released from a prison in Chillicothe following rulings by Horsman, an appellate court, and the Missouri Supreme Court. Bailey's office was scolded for telling prison officials not to release Hemme despite the ruling. "To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong," Judge Horsman said.[12]^
In July 2024, Bailey's office announced intentions to appeal and block Judge Jason Sengheiser's ruling of innocence in the case of Christopher Dunn, who served 33 years in state prison.[13]^
Bailey also blocked a request for a new evidence hearing in the case of Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams, despite a DNA "mismatch" identified in 2015.[14]^ After the trial, prosecutors admitted to excluding a potential African-American juror that Williams' attorneys alleged was due to the juror's race (prosecutors asserted it was due to the juror's close age and physical resemblance to Williams) and acknowledged evidence of crime scene contamination by the state's attorney during the trial. As a result, prosecutors reached a plea agreement with Williams to reduce his death sentence to life without parole. However, Missouri Attorney General Bailey petitioned the Missouri Supreme Court to block the agreement, and subsequently, the plea agreement was overturned.[15]^ Williams was executed on September 24, 2024, despite efforts by his attorneys and the Missouri prosecutor's office to halt the execution.[16]^
Missouri law only allows people on death row to bring innocence claims before a judge. Bailey's office has opposed bipartisan bills in Missouri Legislature to expand opportunities for incarcerated people to advocate for their innocence. Advocates have observed that the office "prioritizes finality over fairness."[17]^
Abortion
Main article: Abortion in Missouri
Abortion in Missouri is legal up to the point of fetal viability as a result of 2024 Missouri Amendment 3 taking effect on December 6, 2024, 30 days after the November 5, 2024, general election.[18]^
Bailey opposes abortion. In 2023, Bailey asked the state auditor's office to change the "anticipated costs" section of a proposed ballot initiative to restore abortion rights in Missouri, which is one of several initiative petitions filed following a ban passed by the state legislature.[19][20]^ After Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick (a Republican) classified the initiative as having an estimated impact of "no costs or savings," Bailey sought to change the estimate to "in the billions"[19][20]^ and later claimed that restoring abortion rights would cost "upward of $12 billion."[20]^ Fitzpatrick said that while he personally opposes abortion, there is no evidence that it would cost the state money.[19][20]^ The Supreme Court of Missouri unanimously ruled that Bailey had no authority to change the projected cost; in a July 2023 ruling, the Court wrote that Bailey improperly attempted to hold up the initiative, that his authority was to review the "legal content and form" (not the "substance") of the auditor's reports, and that Bailey had refused "to perform the plain, unequivocal and ministerial duty of approving those summaries."[20][21]^
In 2024, Bailey sued Planned Parenthood, accusing it of trafficking minors across state lines for abortions[22]^ using a Project Veritas video as evidence. Planned Parenthood describes the video as "heavily doctored and edited"; it was found to feature a fictional girl while purporting to be factual.[23]^ In 2025, Bailey's office subpoenaed Missouri Abortion Fund in the case, despite the organization having no involvement. Elad Gross, representing the group, said the move was an "abuse of government power" and an attempt to overwhelm an organization with minimal resources.[24]^
In 2024, Bailey unsuccessfully joined Kansas and Idaho attorneys general in a lawsuit seeking to reinstate FDA restrictions from year 2000 on the medication mifepristone, which induces chemical abortions. The lawsuit was previously filed by anti-abortion medical professionals and rejected by the Supreme Court for lack of Article III standing. Bailey argued that Missouri is harmed by lost projected revenue due to lower teenage pregnancy rates.[25]^
Defamation
Bailey agreed to have his office represent senators Rick Brattin, Denny Hoskins and Nick Schroer in a defamation lawsuit related to the 2024 Kansas City parade shooting, when the senators posted misinformation on social media identifying a bystander as both the shooter and an undocumented immigrant. Bailey claims that the senators are protected by legislative immunity and that their social media posts, later deleted, were made in their official capacity.[26]^
Disability
In 2025, Bailey joined 16 other state attorneys general in a lawsuit aimed to repeal provisions in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Statements from the attorneys general name recently added provisions related to gender dysphoria and an integration mandate, which operationalized Olmstead v. L.C. Disability advocates raised concern on the case statement of "unconstitutionality" of Section 504 and a lack of communication from Bailey. When questioned on the matter by a member of the House Budget Committee, Bailey could not remember the case.[27]^
Diversity, equity, and inclusion public schools investigation; ethics complaint
In March 2024, an after-school fight at Hazelwood East High School resulted in a 16-year-old student being critically injured by another girl. Bailey's office announced an investigation into the school's focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program, although race was not apparently a factor in the fight. Bailey's letter was strongly criticized for containing several easily verified factual errors, for instance, listing the wrong date and time of the fight and suggesting school resource officers could have prevented the incident. The altercation took place off-campus and after the school day. The school district responded that Bailey was politicizing the incident for political purposes.[28]^ After Bailey announced the investigation, an attorney for the district reported bomb scares in the district and racially-charged hateful messages from across the country.[29]^
In April 2024, the district filed a claim charging Bailey violated state rules by initiating a "frivolous" investigation based on inaccurate claims and politicizing the case. "The complaint to Missouri's Office of Chief Legal Counsel cited multiple violations of the Missouri court system's Rules of Professional Conduct, which are based on American Bar Association models... Those rules prohibit lawyers from bringing frivolous claims, making claims in bad faith, making derogatory public comments about targets of legal action, and using the legal process for the purpose of harassment and intimidation."[30]^
Firearms
On March 7, 2023, federal judge Brian C. Wimes found a state law, signed by Parson, regulating cooperation with federal authorities on firearms issues, to be unconstitutional as a violation of the Supremacy Clause.[31]^ Bailey appealed the case to the Eighth Circuit, who affirmed the court's ruling in August 2024.[32]^ Bailey pressured Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick to change his fiscal note on a ballot petition for firearm regulations. Bailey's proposed costs of $704 million includes costs associated to an estimated "additional 32 murders and 726 rapes" should stricter regulations be implemented. Fitzpatrick retained his original estimate, which Bailey approved.[33]^
Gambling
Lawyers under Bailey's attorney general's office withdrew from a lawsuit related to unregulated slot machines. The plaintiffs, Torch Electronics and Warrenton Oil, contributed to Bailey's 2024 Missouri Attorney General election campaign. In 2021, former attorney general Eric Schmitt returned contributions from Torch Electronics when conflict of interest concerns were raised, choosing to continue work on the case.
Bailey's office did not respond to questions as to why Bailey's office chose to accept the money rather than withdraw from the case.[34]^ In a 2024 town hall amongst attorney general candidates a question was asked, "What are we going to do about gambling machines?" The response from Bailey was, "This issue is a failure of the status quo in Jefferson City... Prosecute crimes and enforce the rule of law."[35]^
The games have come under scrutiny by the Missouri Gaming Association, Missouri State Highway Patrol, and St. Louis County Board of Police Commissioners, who have found a lack of clear legal guidance on the issue. Will Scharf, rival candidate for attorney general, describes the games as "blatantly illegal" and within the scope of the office's responsibilities.[36]^
Media Matters for America
In 2023, Bailey opened a fraud investigation into the left-leaning Media Matters for America, alleging fraud in the organization's reports on placement of advertisements next to pro-Nazi content on Twitter.[37]^
Social media censorship
In June 2024 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6–3 decision, rejected arguments that the federal government violated the First Amendment in its efforts to combat misleading information online. The court held that the co-plaintiffs in the case, including the states of Missouri and Louisiana and seven individuals, could not demonstrate any harm or risk that they will suffer an injury in the future—that they did not have standing to file a suit. A lower court ruled officials in the Trump and Biden administrations unlawfully coerced social media companies to remove "deceptive or inaccurate content out of fears it would fuel vaccine hesitancy or upend elections."[38]^
Starbucks
In February 2025, Bailey filed a lawsuit against Starbucks alleging employment discrimination against white workers and male workers. The company responded that it does not discriminate. When Bailey requested additional funds from the Missouri House Budget Committee, members pointed to unspent funds from the previous budget and suggested evaluation of Bailey's staffing issues.[39]^
Student debt relief
Bailey supports the lawsuit filed by former AG Eric Schmitt against the Biden student debt relief plan on behalf of the Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (MOHELA), a company contracted to handle student loan accounts. A federal judge in Missouri initially threw out the suit, saying that the company was too far removed from the state of Missouri for the case to have standing; however, federal appeals sent the case to the Supreme Court and froze student debt relief indefinitely.[40]^
When asked about MOHELA's unpaid contributions to state higher aid funds since 2008, Bailey responded the issue is for the Supreme Court "to sort out."[41]^ Advocates for student debt relief have argued that MOHELA's revenues would increase should the plan go through.[42]^
Transgender care bans
In April 2023, Bailey released an emergency rule requiring health care providers to screen individuals before providing gender-affirming health care to transgender people. The rule was believed to be the first such ban in the nation as it would apply to adults, in addition to children.[43]^ The rule would have taken effect April 27, 2023, and expired in February 2024. Bailey justified the rule claiming that the medical procedures were "experimental" and required "substantial guardrails."[44]^ This political intervention in medical care aligned with bills filed in other states; however, Bailey escalated the process through his office's authority in Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.[45]^
The rule required healthcare providers to document gender dysphoria for a period of three years before prescribing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or gender-affirming surgery. Transgender individuals would be required to undergo 15 sessions with a psychologist or psychiatrist over at least 18 months before receiving care. The rule required providers to ensure "mental health comorbidities" have been "treated and resolved." The rule required providers to document that the patient has been screened for autism and social contagion and, for minors, social media addiction.[44]^
The rule was suspended while the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, service providers, and community members challenged the rule in court. Bailey withdrew the rule in May 2023,[46]^ following passage of a bill in the Missouri legislature restricting care for transgender youth. Bailey announced his intention to take legal action against the Kansas City Police Department should they fail to enforce restrictions. But the Police Chief clarified that the matter was outside their jurisdiction since the bill's provisions do not relate to criminal conduct.[47]^
In 2023, Bailey made 54 demands to the Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City for documents and testimony related to trans care, although the hospital was not accused of any wrongdoing.[48]^ In April 2023, Children's Mercy sued Bailey in state court, arguing that the demands exceeded Bailey's investigative authority and that release of the information demanded by Bailey would violate medical privacy laws, among other state and federal statutes.[48]^ In July 2024, a St. Louis Circuit Court judge ruled that Bailey could not receive unredacted private medical information of minors treated at the Washington University Transgender Clinic.[49]^
Pro-Trump positions
In March 2023, Bailey condemned a grand jury in New York after it indicted Donald Trump on charges of falsifying business records, arising from his company's payment of hush money to a pornographic film star.[50]^ Bailey, along with other Missouri Republicans, blamed George Soros for the grand jury decision; Jewish leaders in Missouri criticized these statements for echoing antisemitic tropes.[51]^
As attorney general, Bailey has appeared on shows hosted by Jenna Ellis, a former lawyer to Donald Trump, who has been indicted on felony charges for conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election.[2]^ The Kansas City Star criticized Bailey's decision to appear on the podcast, writing that it was "remarkable" that "Missouri's chief legal officer, a role that at times involves prosecuting criminal cases, is appearing with an individual accused of committing a felony to advance a conspiracy to overturn a presidential election in another state."[2]^
In December 2023, Bailey, representing Missouri, joined an amicus brief, submitted by Republican state attorneys general in support of the ex-president in the *United States v. Trump* case against Trump over his handling of classified documents. The brief, led by Alabama, argued against the application of the Presidential Records Act to certain documents in the case.[52]^
In June 2024, Bailey announced his intention to file a lawsuit against the State of New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to "stay the gag order and any sentence" in New York's criminal case against Trump until after the 2024 presidential election. He justified the lawsuit by claiming that the gag and sentencing order would interfere with Missouri citizens' ability to obtain election-related information and with the state's electors' ability to perform their duties. He filed the lawsuit on July 3.[53][54][55]^ In his suit, Bailey attempted to invoke the Supreme Court's exclusive jurisdiction to hear disputes between two states.[56]^ The Supreme Court rejected Bailey's lawsuit on August 5.[57]^
2024 campaign
Main article: 2024 Missouri Attorney General election
In 2024, Bailey campaigned for a full term as Attorney General.[58]^ In the Republican primary election, Bailey faced challenger Will Scharf, a former assistant U.S. attorney and official in Eric Greitens' administration.[59]^ Bailey's campaign was supported by the "Life and Liberty PAC," managed by Steven Tilley, whose biggest donors are Pauline MacMillan Keinath of the Cargill family, and the family and associates of Michael Ketchmark. Scharf's campaign was supported by the "Defend Missouri PAC" (which is funded largely by the Judicial Crisis Network and other groups associated with conservative activist Leonard Leo).[59]^ Bailey won the Republican primary, and subsequently the general election, as he defeated Democrat Elad Gross.[60]^
Shortly after winning reelection, it was revealed that Bailey was on President-elect Donald Trump's shortlist of candidates for U.S. Attorney General; however, Trump ultimately chose Pam Bondi for the role.[61]^
Deputy Director of the FBI (2025–2026)
On August 18, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Bailey as Co-Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[62]^ Bailey resigned as Missouri Attorney General on September 8, 2025.[63]^ Bailey was sworn in as Co-Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on September 15, 2025, serving along with Dan Bongino until the latter's resignation on January 3, 2026, thus making Bailey sole deputy director, until Christopher Raia’s appointment on January 12, in which he resumed status as co-deputy director.
Bailey resigned as Co-Deputy Director effective October 2, 2026.[64]^
Personal life
Bailey and his wife, Jessica, have four children, three of whom they fostered and later adopted.[5]^ They live in Montgomery County, Missouri.[65]^
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SEE STAFFER NETWORK
AN 2 26
The Missouri prosecutor overseeing an investigation into the 2020 vote in Fulton County, Georgia, has taken part in meetings since last fall with lawyers tasked by President Donald Trump to reinvestigate his loss to Joe Biden.
Thomas Albus, whom Trump appointed last year as U.S. attorney for Missouri’s Eastern District, has had multiple meetings set up with top administration lawyers to discuss election integrity.
At those meetings was Ed Martin, a Justice Department lawyer who until recently led a group investigating what the president has described as the department’s “weaponization” against him and his allies, according to a source familiar with the meetings who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, who has been tasked with reinvestigating the 2020 election, also was directed to join at least one of the meetings, according to the source. Both Martin and Olsen worked on behalf of Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election results, and a federal court sanctioned Olsen for making false claims about the reliability of voting machines in Arizona.
The meetings reveal new details about the length of the preparations for, and people involved in, the January FBI raid on Fulton County, which election and legal experts told ProPublica was a significant escalation in Trump’s breaking of democratic norms.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi picked Albus and has granted him special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide, even though his earlier work as a federal prosecutor didn’t involve election law or election-related cases. The meetings with Martin, Olsen and other lawyers for the Justice Department were described by the source as being about “election integrity,” a term the Trump administration has used to describe investigations into its false claims that elections are rigged.
Martin, Olsen, Albus and others declined to answer questions about the meetings and other detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House and the Justice Department also did not respond to questions.
The meetings came at a particularly crucial time.
Martin’s efforts to obtain election materials from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, had hit a wall. In August, he sent a letter demanding that a Fulton County judge allow him to access tens of thousands of absentee ballots for “an investigation into election integrity here at the Department of Justice,” but he had reportedly received no reply.
Martin explained to Steve Bannon on a podcast that aired around the time of the meetings that although the White House had given Olsen the official mandate to reinvestigate the 2020 election, “inside DOJ, myself and a couple of others have been working also on the same topic” — including getting the Fulton County ballots. But Martin described progress as a “challenge.”
Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, asked why Martin didn’t just “get some U.S. marshals to go down and seize” the ballots.
Martin suggested it was easier said than done, but agreed: “Look, we’ve got to get” the ballots.
Before long, Albus and Olsen were interviewing witnesses for their case. Kevin Moncla, a conservative researcher, told ProPublica that he spoke to Albus and Olsen a couple of times, both together and separately, around the turn of the year. He identified himself as Witness 7 in the affidavit that persuaded a judge to sign off on the raid, and the affidavit mentions a 263-page report he authored that activists believe may have justified the raid, ProPublica has reported. Moncla has a long history of working with Olsen, dating back to an attempt by Kari Lake, a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona, to overturn her 2022 loss.
Just a few weeks after those interviews, in late January, Albus was listed as the government attorney on the search warrant that authorized the seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material in Georgia, far outside of Albus’ usual jurisdiction.
Former U.S. attorneys from both parties said it was rare for a federal prosecutor from one region to take on cases in other states or be granted the nationwide authority Albus has been given.
Under Trump, senior roles across the White House, DOJ and FBI have increasingly been filled by a small, interconnected group of Missouri lawyers with longstanding ties to one another.
Another top federal official in the meetings was Jesus Osete, the principal deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Before joining the Justice Department, Osete worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, where he represented the state in at least five lawsuits against the Biden administration regarding vaccine mandates, immigration and other policies. Osete did not respond to requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions.
When the FBI raided Fulton County’s election center, Andrew Bailey, another lawyer from the same political circles, was in charge. Before joining the FBI as deputy director, he had used his position as Missouri’s attorney general to pursue high-profile cases against prominent Democrats and said he supported all efforts to investigate Biden, his family and his administration.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to answer detailed questions about Bailey.
Last year, Roger Keller, a veteran federal prosecutor from Albus’ office, was brought in to help prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud in Virginia after the original career prosecutors on the case were replaced by political appointees. After a judge dismissed the case, two federal grand juries declined to indict James again, and Keller returned to Missouri.
Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, previously served as Missouri’s solicitor general under state attorneys general Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt. He and Schmitt signed Missouri’s amicus brief supporting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Sauer later represented Trump in his presidential-immunity case, successfully arguing before the Supreme Court that Trump was entitled to broad immunity from prosecution.
Albus’ connection to the other Missouri lawyers goes back decades. Unlike some of the others, though, he has never held elected office or had a high public profile, nor has he waged culture-war campaigns like Bailey or Martin. Instead, he spent most of his career as a federal prosecutor and as a judge in a Missouri state circuit court.
Emails show Albus exchanging brief messages with Martin in 2007, when Albus was an assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis and Martin was chief of staff to then-Gov. Matt Blunt. The emails were part of records from the Blunt administration that became public after being released under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.
In the email exchange, Albus put in a good word for a St. Louis lawyer who was a finalist for an appellate court judgeship, and Blunt ultimately selected that candidate.
Albus served as first assistant to Schmitt from early 2019 until Albus was appointed by Gov. Mike Parson to fill a circuit court judge vacancy in early 2020. Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, praised Albus as “one of the finest prosecutors I have ever met” when endorsing his nomination for U.S. attorney in December.
Lawyers who appeared in Albus’ court rated him as well prepared, professional and attentive, according to Missouri judicial performance reviews. They said he followed the evidence, applied the law correctly and gave clear reasons for his rulings.
Albus came under more critical scrutiny after Trump named him interim U.S. attorney last summer. Much of that attention centered on a fraud case he inherited when he took office. Prosecutors alleged that developers in St. Louis falsely claimed to be using minority- and women-owned subcontractors to qualify for city tax breaks, conduct the Justice Department has historically treated as wire fraud.
One of the defendants was represented by lawyer Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi.
The developers’ lawyers argued that even if the government’s claims were true, they were legally irrelevant because the Trump administration had taken the position that tax breaks based on race or gender were unlawful. Albus accepted those arguments and dropped the case. As part of the resolution, Albus personally hand-delivered to City Hall a check of about $1 million from one of the developers’ companies as restitution. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he intervened “to make it clear” his office wanted to drop charges and hand-delivered the check “to make sure they got it.”
In a letter to Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Congressional Democrats said the dismissal of the St. Louis case and other cases in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of Brad Bondi’s clients raised “significant broader ethical concerns.” In the St. Louis case, and in a separate matter involving another Brad Bondi client whose charges were dropped, a Justice Department spokesperson said Pam Bondi’s relationship with her brother had “no bearing on the outcome.”
A spokesperson for the developers said their lawyers communicated only with the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis about the case and had no direct contact with Pam Bondi. He said the dismissal reflected “a recognition that this case should never have been brought in the first place.” Brad Bondi did not respond to a request for comment.
Weeks later, around the time of Albus’ meetings about election integrity, he posed with Martin in Martin’s office, flanked by a framed photo of Trump and a copy of “A Choice, Not an Echo,” the influential conservative manifesto by Phyllis Schlafly arguing that Republican voters were being manipulated by party elites and the media.
Martin posted the photo on X with the caption, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?”
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OMFG
RAW
United States Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard steps out of a vehicle outside the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a search warrant there in relation to the 2020 election, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter, in Union City, Georgia, U.S. January 28, 2026. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
The FBI conducted what a legal analyst described as a "highly unusual" search of an election office in the Georgia county where President Donald Trump and his allies were indicted for their efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Fulton County commissioner Mo Ivory challenged the warrant as “incorrect legally” seeking all ballots from that election and other evidence, and the FBI then obtained a corrected warrant listing Thomas Albus, an interim U.S. attorney in Missouri, as the government attorney, and CNN's Joey Jackson listed other details about the probe that stood out as odd.
"It's rather unusual," said Jackson, a former prosecutor, "inasmuch as this has been investigated and litigated and there have been a determination, there's been determinations as to no fraud. There's been three recounts, one of them manually. There's been inspections. The Trump [Department of Justice] itself has given the indication that there's no fraud here."
ALSO READ:These Trump shills will be the first to turn on him — and he knows it
"Why is that relevant to your question?" he added. "It's relevant because when you're looking at a criminal warrant, you're looking at evidence of criminality. You're looking at making a determination as to whether there was voter fraud in terms of people who voted that should not have voted or any other type of deception, and so this magistrate would have had to draw some conclusions, and the reason I say that it's somewhat interesting is because if you have this previous litigation, this is not new, this is from 2020, and you have massive investigations and you have no determination as to criminality. What are we doing here?"
Trump's DOJ had sued Fulton County last year seeking ballot stubs, signature envelopes and other evidence from the 2020 election, but that case appeared to be going nowhere before federal investigators seized that evidence themselves.
"The civil suit is moot, and just backing up on that, this past October, as in 2025, there was a demand served by DOJ," Jackson explained. "They were relying upon the Civil Rights Act of 1960, and that act required that you retain records in terms of voting and that you produce them on demand. However, the issue is relating to discrimination. This was a law that was passed in terms of the Jim Crow South people who were excluded from voting, and so what ended up happening is, is that the the state said, no, we're not producing those records, and they were in civil litigation, and guess what records they were looking to get produced? The same records that when the state said, we're not giving them to you and filed a motion to dismiss three weeks ago saying, we're not giving you boxes of our voting records."
"Those are the same boxes that were just taken out, 700 of them," Jackson added. "So they did an end-around [on] the lawsuit. The lawsuit, in all measures, is now moot because the records DOJ was seeking in the civil lawsuit, not criminal, has just been gotten by the FBI."
The FBI currently has custody of that evidence, which the state has argued should be held under seal to preserve their integrity, but a judge had not yet issued a ruling about whether Georgia had to turn over those records to the DOJ.
"State officials are now saying, well, wait a second, if the narrative of the federal government is that there was fraud here, if the issue of the federal government is you did nothing right, state officials and everyone was rampantly going to vote if they're in the custody of the feds," Jackson said. "Now, who's to know that they're not going to be manipulated or otherwise used for the narrative of the federal government? That's the concern."
FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, the former Missouri attorney general who has stated the 2020 election "absolutely stolen" from Trump, was present during the search, in addition to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Jackson was shocked to see them at the scene.
"It's so highly unusual, I'm just saying, what are we talking about now?" Jackson said. "First of all, taking a step back from that, the deputy director of the FBI, generally, they stay at headquarters. To give you some context, when Mar-a-Lago was raided in 2022, that was done by field operatives. The head of the agency and other important, right, everyone is important, but in terms of the people who run the agency, we're back at headquarters, the field-level supervisors were there executing that warrant here, right. You have a situation where the deputy director of the FBI is there, and the person who runs national security, who is in charge of foreign affairs, is here"
"It's unbelievable and it's unprecedented and we are in another world," he added, "and the major concern here, I'll just say very quickly, they're they're trying, the federal government, to do this in other jurisdictions. In fact, in Oregon, a judge made a ruling that, no, you're not getting these records. So I think more of this is to come in other areas."
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an 8 25
One recent surprise appointment of a co-deputy director at the FBI suggests that President Donald Trump could be preparing to fire one of his most controversial picks at the bureau.
That's according to several law enforcement sources — including a former senior FBI official — who confided to NBC News on Tuesday that current FBI deputy director Dan Bongino may be headed for the exits. Those sources, who spoke to the outlet anonymously, said that Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey's recent appointment to serve alongside Bongino in a position that had been created just for him showed it was "clear as day" that Bongino's firing was looming in the near future. Bongino has previously complained about the long hours involved with being the #2 official at the FBI, adding that the job has taken him away from his family.
"All the retired people think it shows Bongino [could be fired]," the former top FBI official said.
READ MORE:'Not of sound mind': National security expert says it's 'fair' to doubt Trump's mental state
Bailey is viewed as a staunch Trump loyalist who used his time as Missouri's top law enforcement official to hound Democrats. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in a July editorial that Bailey also "improperly inserted his office into various national culture-war controversies."
"For more than two years now, the state’s top lawyer has routinely used that perch to pursue frivolous and often deranged legal action designed to inflame his MAGA base," the editorial read.
In a statement to NBC News, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sounded the alarm over Bailey's appointment. He warned that "a partisan politician" was about to take the reins of the FBI amid Trump's open campaign of retribution against his political enemies.
"Mr. Bailey is another Trump loyalist who has continuously peddled the ‘Big Lie,’ that the 2020 election was stolen," Durbin told the network. “This appointment further proves President Trump will stop at nothing to politicize and weaponize the federal government’s most prestigious and powerful law-enforcement agency to protect his allies and punish his critics."
READ MORE:'Flashing warning': Dems end GOP supermajority in deep-red state by flipping deep-red seat
Click here to read NBC's report in its entirety.
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omg promoted to kash job 8 19 25
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AN 7 25
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey may have a bad track record in court, but he’s winning anyway. This is especially true of his crusade to make the workforce and higher education less diverse.
He’s had success using losing lawsuits, investigations that do nothing but burn Missouri taxpayer dollars and threatening letters that misstate the law.
On the day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled traditional affirmative action programs in higher education unconstitutional, Bailey sent threatening letters to Missouri universities and municipalities in which he overstated what the ruling did and implied that all efforts at fostering diversity and inclusion in Missouri must be halted.
In April, Bailey excoriated the Business Roundtable for having “racist DEI initiatives.” He wrote he would fight “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination.” In an impressive act of government “jawboning” that Bailey has claimed to oppose in other contexts, he threatened that such policies “risk exposing your organizations to substantial liability.”
Bailey is suing IBM, alleging the company did too much to recruit non-white and female hires.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (the “DEI” much maligned by the far-right) help companies hire and retain qualified people who they wouldn’t easily find through traditional white male networks. Many studies and companies have explained that diversity is good for profits and innovation, and that you don’t get a diverse workforce without making an effort to recruit one.
Bailey’s court filings come shockingly close to outright stating his contrary premise: women and non-white people are inherently inferior so any increase in their representation is bad.
IBM argued that Bailey hasn’t pleaded that any Missouri employee or job applicant was discriminated against. Indeed, this looks like Bailey preening for the national anti-diversity warriors rather than addressing a Missouri problem.
Though you wouldn’t know it from listening to Bailey, diversity is still a permissible goal under Supreme Court precedent. And it is typical for companies to reward executives for advancing corporate goals.
But the IBM lawsuit looks like another one where Bailey could win with a loser of a case. IBM has long been known for being a model for inclusive policies and a great place to work. IBM’s diversity council began in the ‘90s. It has touted hiring a disabled employee in 1914. But this year it ended most of its diversity efforts. We’ll see whether IBM continues to fight back against Bailey.
Whatever happens, say goodbye to IBM and similarly situated companies employing more people here. Bailey has made it clear that employers should expect legal harassment for exercising their rights to association and free speech in Missouri.
Bailey has also sued Starbucks. His brief argues that the Starbucks workforce has become “more female and less white” — and that this is unacceptable.
Starbucks appears to be defending the values that the company professes. The company is also likely aware that if it were to abandon its reasonable efforts to have a workforce more representative of its customer base, it could lead to a boycott and a massive stock hit like Target experienced.
Shareholders have realized that reversing inclusive policies is bad for business. Shareholders voted down anti-diversity proposals overwhelmingly this proxy season.
The market has spoken. So Bailey’s latest ploy is to punish free speech in the market.
Bailey filed lawsuits against two firms that give shareholders advice on how to vote. He claims that they have engaged in “deceptive practices” by recommending inclusive policies. This is one of his many attempts to weaponize the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which was meant to protect Missourians from actual fraud.
But frivolous lawsuits against out-of-state corporations are not the only way to light taxpayer dollars on fire.
Bailey can burn up twice the Missouri tax dollars by having Missouri wage legal warfare against itself. See for example, Bailey’s investigation of the Hazelwood School District over an off-campus fight between students of different races, the three year lawsuit against the Springfield School District over demands to search thousands of documents for a list of possibly DEI-related terms that the District estimated would cost $170,000, or his new investigation of the City of Columbia over whether it might be trying to advance diversity and equity.
How does a successful, powerful white man come to have such resentment towards women and people of color for the modest gains we have made that he treats it as Missouri’s biggest problem? How does someone once known as a “reasonable and smart attorney” become a “warrior in the culture wars”? What could compel him to regularly use dehumanizing language about diversity proponents who merely want more people to have opportunities?
Did he get radicalized online? Bailey has filed a surprising number of lawsuits based on tweeted statements or videos.
His IBM lawsuit cites a video circulated online. He sued Media Matters in response to an Elon Musk tweet (that lawsuit was thrown out as I predicted, but Media Matters had to cut staff due to the costs of Bailey and Musk lawsuits, so that’s another extra-legal win for Bailey). Bailey sued Planned Parenthood over a Project Veritas video, without bothering to get the unedited tape.
Another possibility is that this is how Republicans feel they need to make a name and impress Trump and MAGA. Still, I just can’t muster the cynicism to make it make sense.
Sometimes I wonder what Bailey’s mom thinks.
I learned that Dr. Jessica Bailey was the first female dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Health Related Professions and a revered and beloved leader there — and a champion of diversity efforts.
A 2022 article about her retirement describes Dr. Bailey’s mentorship and recruitment of the school’s then chief diversity and inclusion officer. In an earlier article, Dr. Bailey extolls that colleague for being “committed to providing opportunities for students who might otherwise not imagine themselves in a health care profession,” and having “the vision to recognize opportunities to make our health care work force be more representative of our Mississippi population.”
These are goals that her son claims are unconstitutional and racist.
During Dr. Bailey’s tenure as dean, she oversaw the development of a Diversity and Inclusion Champion Professional Development and Certificate Program. She supervised PhD theses concerning the need to diversify the health work force and bone marrow donors. She was lauded for her personal involvement in a program that recruited young Black men into medical professions.
I asked Bailey’s office whether the attorney general thinks his mother was engaged in illegal “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination” in general, or specifically with the mentorship program for Black men.
His office responded:
“Attorney General Bailey has no knowledge of these programs administered in another state, years ago, when he was not in office. What he does know is this: DEI programs that condition opportunity on skin color violate the Missouri Constitution and the foundational American promise of equality under the law. Whether it’s in corporate boardrooms, public universities, or government contracting, he will continue to fight race-based discrimination in any form. He has led on this issue since taking office.”
That’s a clearer “yes, my mother did illegal, racist things” than I was expecting.
Bailey is not just disavowing the work of his highly accomplished mother, who has referenced the barriers she overcame as a woman in a male dominated field and who worked to help others up the ladder. He is twisting the law to claim all such efforts are illegal.
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.
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an 12 24
one month after Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion, Republican lawmakers in the deeply red state are already working to overturn it — or at least undermine it.
One measure would ask voters to amend the state constitution to define life as beginning at conception, declaring that embryos are people with rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The result would be to classify abortion as an unlawful killing.
Another proposal, aimed at repealing the abortion rights amendment, would ask voters to ban gender transition procedures for minors, tying the two issues together, despite the fact that the amendment did not address gender surgery and gender-affirming care for transgender children is already illegal in Missouri.
Other proposed amendments include stricter abortion limits, such as restricting access to cases of rape, incest, medical emergencies and fetal anomalies. These measures would impose additional requirements, such as mandating that rape survivors file police reports to obtain an abortion.
GOP lawmakers have also introduced a measure to raise the threshold for amending the state constitution through voter initiatives, which could make it harder to pass similar measures in the future.
The legislative moves follow the Nov. 5 election, in which the amendment to put abortion rights in the state constitution won by a 51.6%-48.4% margin. Starting Thursday, the right to abortion will be constitutionally guaranteed up to the point of fetal viability, while restrictions on post-viability abortions will remain in place.
In other states where voters approved abortion rights measures last month, there were no signs yet that lawmakers would also try to counter those measures.
Even before votes in Missouri had been counted, proponents of Amendment 3, as the measure was called, had anticipated that a victory would be met with efforts to somehow undercut abortion rights.
“These people will continue to rail against abortion,” said state Rep. Deb Lavender, a Democrat from the St. Louis suburbs.
Although Missouri already has a law recognizing life as beginning at conception, stating that unborn children have “protectable interests in life, health, and well-being,” the proposed constitutional amendment would go further. It would effectively elevate this principle to the state constitution and potentially complicate not only abortion rights but the legality of in vitro fertilization and the handling of embryos.
Several states have laws recognizing fetal personhood, but Missouri would be the second — after Alabama — to enshrine it in its constitution. That could create legal and ideological confusion or even conflicts, experts say.
“You could see voters saying, ‘I support a right to abortion,’ but also saying, ‘Life begins at conception,’ without understanding that you can’t have both of those things at the same time,” said Jamille Fields Allsbrook, a professor at St. Louis University School of Law and a former policy analyst for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
The author of one of the personhood measures, Rep. Justin Sparks, a Republican from the St. Louis suburbs, said he was emboldened by the narrow margin of the abortion rights vote.
“A clear mandate has not been achieved,” he said. While the amendment had strong support in metro St. Louis and Kansas City and in the county that’s home to the University of Missouri, “the vast majority of the rest of the state voted in a different direction,” he added. “So I think it’s fair to again bring the question up.”
But state Sen. Tracy McCreery, a Democrat also from the St. Louis suburbs, noted that Sparks was going against the will of voters in the St. Louis area. “I find that even more disrespectful of the voters,” she said. “It wasn’t just voters that tend to vote Democratic that voted yes on Amendment 3. It was also Republican voters and independent voters, and I think that’s getting lost in this discussion.”
The measure to link abortion and transgender rights reflects the campaign before the election, when abortion opponents conflated these topics. Critics said this strategy seeks to distract from abortion rights, which had strong voter support, by capitalizing on voter discomfort with transgender issues.
While GOP lawmakers push these measures, the legal landscape around abortion in Missouri is already shifting. On Wednesday, a Jackson County Circuit Court heard arguments in a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri that seeks to strike down Missouri’s near-total abortion ban and other laws that regulate abortion. The lawsuit followed the passage of Amendment 3. Planned Parenthood said if it wins in court it plans to resume abortion services in St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia on Friday.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has acknowledged that the amendment will legalize most abortions when it goes into effect, but he has said he intends to enforce remaining restrictions, such as a ban on abortions after fetal viability, a 72-hour waiting period and parental consent for minors.
Lawmakers are also pushing to raise the bar for passing constitutional amendments. Now, a simple majority is enough; that has allowed Missouri voters to bypass the legislature and pass progressive amendments that lawmakers oppose. A new bill would ask voters to pass a constitutional amendment requiring not just a statewide majority but also a majority of voters in five of the state’s eight congressional districts — a change critics argued would give disproportionate power to rural areas over urban voters. It would then be harder for voters to approve measures that don’t align with the priorities of the conservative politicians they tend to elect.
Earlier this year, a similar effort to make it harder to amend the constitution failed after Democrats in the Senate filibustered it.
Sparks criticized the Republican leadership in the General Assembly for allowing the failure, pointing to a Republican supermajority in both houses that could have passed the measure.
“We hold all the power,” Sparks said. “We hold all the procedural levers of power, and we can shut down debate in both houses any time, any day, for any bill we choose to.”
Florida shows how a higher threshold for voter initiatives might play out. In 2006, the state raised the bar for constitutional amendments to 60%. This year, a majority of voters — 57% — supported an abortion rights amendment, an even bigger margin than in Missouri, but not sufficient in Florida.
It’s not clear yet, though, whether any of the measures have enough support in Missouri’s General Assembly.
Lavender said that the campaign supporting abortion rights significantly outraised its opposition during the election. “It’s going to be difficult to overturn,” she said. “You’ll have the same money that supported it now going up against you.”
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thom an 10 24
...
— Republican attorneys general go to court to demand more pregnant 15-year-olds. This story sounds too bizarre to be true, but Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Idaho Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador have filed a lawsuit in federal court — presumably aiming for an eventual hearing before the Supreme Court — claiming that their states are being harmed, population-wise, by the availability of abortion drugs that can be shipped into their states by mail.
They want shipping Mifepristone outlawed nationwide. The proof of the harm, they say, is that they are not seeing enough pregnant teenagers. The lawsuit is explicit (page 190): “Defendants’ efforts enabling the remote dispensing of abortion drugs has caused abortions for women in Plaintiff States and decreased births in Plaintiff States. This is a sovereign injury to the State in itself. … When data is examined in a way that reflects sensitivity to expected birth rates, these estimates strikingly ‘do not show evidence of an increase in births to teenagers aged 15-19,’ even in states with long driving distances despite the fact that ‘women aged 15-19 … are more responsive to driving distances to abortion facilities than older women.’”
They then claim that this “proof” that availability of mailed abortion pills are causing the drop in pregnancies among girls 15-19 years old is an “injury” to their states because it lowers their potential population. This is getting wild, but wait until the Supreme Court authorizes Red states to begin monitoring the menstrual periods of fertile girls and women; Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt has already introduced federal legislation requiring companies selling devices that track ovulation to report their results to state agencies or a federal database, including police agencies nationwide, so pregnancies can be caught and tracked. Republicans won’t be happy until every girl in America grows up the way Amy Coney Barrett did in her People of Praise Catholic cult where she was referred to as a “Handmaiden.”
— And now, to the delight of Republican lawmakers and police the US government has bought a tool that can track you by your cellphone to abortion clinics anywhere in the country. Locate X is a product from Babel Street which our government has been using since the Trump administration; it’s capable of tracking every cellphone in the country with remarkable location accuracy. The folks at 404 Media did a trial run of it focused on tracking people to and from abortion clinics, and the process was startlingly easy. When Ted Cruz, JD Vance, and the rest of the GOP forced-birth crowd again gain control of the federal government, get ready. They’re chomping at the bit…
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08/26/24
Media Matters statement on winning injunction against Missouri AG Andrew Bailey in federal court
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 08/26/24
Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone issued the following statement after Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.
“A federal judge has clearly seen this coordinated effort by state attorneys general for what it is – sucking up to Elon Musk and abusing the power of their offices to intimidate researchers and stifle accurate reporting by Musk's critics. Andrew Bailey was one of those AGs that took up the call and he was defeated.
“The judge’s decision is a victory for free speech and a warning to other AGs and like-minded bad actors that the constitution does not allow for this type of meritless, retaliatory, harassing effort to suppress free speech.”
Key takeaways from the order:
As Judge Mehta noted, Media Matters was the target of politically motivated “retaliation” by law enforcement that “chilled” our “protected expression” and First Amendment rights.
* The U.S. District Court also affirmed that Media Matters’ reporting is “protected speech” and has been corroborated by other media outlets and even X Corp.
According to Judge Mehta “‘the most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends.’ … That apparently is what has occurred here.”
* The U.S. District Court affirmed that AG Bailey’s own “public statements are direct evidence of retaliatory intent” against Media Matters, and “retaliation for protected expression was likely his true motive for investigating Media Matters.”
The same day that X Corp. filed a meritless lawsuit against Media Matters for America for an accurate report on the platform’s extremism, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened a similarly specious investigation into MMFA under Texas’ deceptive trade practices act. Paxton subsequently issued an overbroad and invasive civil investigative demand – despite the fact that Media Matters has no relevant connection to Texas. On April 12, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Weeks after Paxton issued his demand, Missouri AG Andrew Bailey claimed to open his own investigation into Media Matters. Bailey ultimately filed a Civil Investigative Demand against the organization on March 25, 2024 – despite the fact that Media Matters has no relevant connection to Missouri. According to Bailey himself, he is coordinating with Paxton in his “war” against Media Matters and his Missouri Demand is “virtually identical” to Paxton’s Texas Demand. On April 24, 2024, Judge Mehta permitted Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to be a defendant in Media Matters’ suit against Paxton.
The nonpartisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker which catalogs press freedom violations in the United States recently recorded incident reports related to the Texas attorney general's investigation and the Missouri attorney general’s investigation in their database.
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an 7 24
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird filed an amicus brief Wednesday calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s challenge of former President Donald Trump’s prosecution in the New York hush-money trial.
Bailey, a Missouri Republican, filed a lawsuit earlier in July against the state of New York, seeking to lift the gag order imposed on Trump during the trial where he was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments during the 2016 presidential campaign season.
The lawsuit seeks to delay sentencing for Trump’s conviction in the case until after the November election, where the former president faces a rematch with President Joe Biden.
While Trump was found guilty in the New York criminal trial, the Supreme Court ruled in July that U.S. presidents have full immunity from criminal charges for official “core constitutional” acts while in office, but not for unofficial acts. The decision sent Trump’s election interference case, where he stands accused of scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential results, back to the lower courts.
The Missouri lawsuit, filed one day after the ruling on presidential immunity, claims the state of New York violated Missourians’ First Amendment rights by issuing a gag order in Trump’s criminal case and preventing voters from hearing the views of a presidential candidate in the 2024 election.
“This lawfare is poisonous to American democracy,” Bailey wrote in the lawsuit. “The American people ought to be able to participate in a presidential election free from New York’s interference. Any gag order and sentence should be stayed until after the election.”
Bird and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a brief supporting the Missouri lawsuit on Wednesday. Joined by Alaska and Montana, the state attorneys general argued that Trump is the “target of a prosecution by a New York County district attorney” in the hush-money case.
In a news release, Bird claimed New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, has used the trial for political gain, citing a New York Times article on his statements about Trump.
“As a prosecutor, I know that politics has no place in criminal prosecutions,” Bird said. “I am calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case against New York’s political prosecution, gag order, and sentencing of President Trump that interfere with the presidential election. We must protect free and fair elections and the rule of law.”
The sentencing in the New York case has been delayed until Sept. 18 by New York Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, so the court has time to hear arguments about how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision impacts state-level convictions.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and X.
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12 24
Disinformation Governance Board,
andrew ferguson
clarence clerk
mcconnell mafia liar
solic genl virginia AG disinfo bd
rICHMOND, Va. ( abc 7News) — Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is leading a group of 20 State Attorneys General who are preparing to take legal action against President Joe Biden’s new Disinformation Governance Board, which was unveiled at a time when Elon Musk announced he was trying to purchase Twitter.
“It seems like some people in the Biden administration probably took George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Fourand they thought the Ministry of Truth was somehow a model when in reality, it was a warning to all of us, which is one of the bedrock principles of this country is your first amendment, and it should be protected and the federal government has such broad power that it shouldn't be in the position of a policing speech,” Miyares told 7News.
“I think it could have a chilling effect on what I call the marketplace of ideas. And the one thing about Americans is we feel like we have the freedom to debate and discuss and that's healthy for democracy. The federal government shouldn't be weighing in and possibly having a chilling effect on free speech. And the second is, there's no authority statutorily for them to create this new governing board.”
The Virginia Attorney General is also concerned about the credibility of President Biden’s appointee who is leading the board, Nina Jankowicz, a Virginia resident.
Miyares is calling her a far-left activist who isn’t neutral, and in a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Miyares went as far as calling Jankowicz the “Mary Poppins of disinformation” referring to a TikTok video she published of herself singing a Poppins’ styled song.
“When Rudy Guiliani shared bad intel from Ukraine,” she said. “Or win TikTok influencers say COVID can’t cause pain. They’re laundering disinfo and we really should take note. And not support their lies with our wallet, voice, or voice. Oh!”
Nina Jankowicz on TikTok
Miyares is also concerned with what she said about some parents in Loudoun County, labeling some as dis-informers.
"Critical Race Theory has become one of those hot button issues that the Republicans and other dis-informers who are engaged in disinformation for-profit frankly, there are plenty of media outlets that are making off of it too,” said Jankowicz. “I live in Virginia. In Loudoun County, that's one of the areas where people have really honed in on this topic.”
“The third issue of concern on this is the fact that they claim this is going to be somehow an even-handed review of communications out in the public sphere, and then they appoint the person that's going to be, by all accounts, the referee of what’s fair, an individual that has directly attacked Virginians,” said Miyares. “She went after and criticized heavily concerned parents that were attending school board meetings bringing up a variety of different concerns, including in Loudoun and she was calling them peddlers of misinformation.”
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is defending the work the Disinformation board is doing.
"What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries from the cartels and disseminate that information to the operators,” said Mayorkas.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on CNN
And Mayorkas is defending Jankowicz.
“They say she is not neutral,” said CNN’s Dana Bash. “Your response?”
Read the letter from AG Miyares to DHS Secretary Mayorkas:
AG Miyares to DHS Secretary Mayorkas by Don Parker on Scribd
“Imminently qualified,” Mayorkas replied. "A renowned expert in the field of disinformation.”
“And neutral?” asked Bash.
“Absolutely so,” replied Mayorkas.
AG-Miyares-to-DHS-Secretary-Mayorkas#from_embed
rokita morrisey etc etc yost wilson reyes paxton landry schmidt
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no lnx
MISSOURI’S ATTORNEY GENERAL ISN’T MAGA ENOUGH FOR LEONARD LEO
The conservative megadonor’s network is plowing money into the Republican primary to support Will Scharf, Trump’s personal attorney.
Shawn Musgrave
July 2 2024,
CONSERVATIVE MEGADONOR Leonard Leo is funneling millions of dollars into the primary race for Missouri’s attorney general. His anointed candidate is Will Scharf, a personal attorney to Donald Trump who represented the former president in the immunity case decided Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
What’s remarkable about the Missouri race is that the Republican incumbent, Andrew Bailey, is also an archconservative star-in-the-making, with endorsements from the National Rifle Association, top Missouri lawmakers, and state law enforcement unions.
Despite Bailey’s deeply conservative agenda and rhetoric, Leo is helping bankroll a primary challenge.
Since his appointment in 2023, Bailey has sued the Biden administration over student loan cancellation, protections for transgender students, and federal officials’ efforts to influence social media content moderation practices around Covid-19.
This isn’t enough for Leo. Despite Bailey’s deeply conservative agenda and rhetoric, Leo is helping bankroll a primary challenge that’s pitting national rightwing donors against wealthy conservative Missourians. The primary will be held on August 6.
Leo’s Largesse vs. Old Beer Money
Campaign finance disclosures show that Leo and his allies have underwritten much of Scharf’s bid to be the next state attorney.
The Concord Fund, one of Leo’s dark-money organizations, has given $3.5 million so far to two pro-Scharf PACs: $500,000 to Defend Missouri last year, plus another $3 million to Club for Growth Action Missouri so far in 2024. (One of these $1 million checks was initially misreported as coming from Leo personally, rather than from the Concord Fund.)
Republican megadonor Paul Singer — a hedge fund billionaire and fishing buddy of Justice Samuel Alito who is closely aligned with Leo — has chipped in another $1.5 million to support Scharf, also via Club for Growth Action. Singer and his firm are based in West Palm Beach, Florida.
To try to keep up with this flood of national money to a state primary, the main committee supporting Bailey — Liberty and Justice PAC — has turned primarily to wealthy Missourians. These include the heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, August A. Busch III, who has given $200,000 in the past two years. Mike and Carolyn Rayner, a retired couple that are part of the family that owns Cargill, have given more than $1 million to Liberty and Justice PAC over this period. Another wealthy couple, Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, gave $500,000, and a Kansas City law firm, Ketchmark & McCreight, gave more than $230,000.
As of April 1, Liberty and Justice PAC had just under $2 million in the bank, and Club for Growth Action had just under $2.2 million. Since then, Bailey’s mostly local highrollers have contributed around $750,000, compared to the $3.4 million that Club for Growth Action got in just two checks from Singer and the Concord Fund.
Bailey has been unable to unlock one crucial war chest: the Republican Attorneys General Association, a collective of his conservative counterparts in 27 other states. In the Louisiana attorney general race last year, RAGA spent $1.8 million to support the winner, Elizabeth Murrill.
In his brief time as a RAGA member, Bailey has led various coalition efforts, including letters warning CVS and Walgreens in 2023 that sending abortion pills by mail would violate the Comstock Act. He has also led group briefs to the Supreme Court, including in the mifepristone case and the challenges to Texas and Florida laws regulating social media platforms.
Still, RAGA — to which Leo’s Concord Fund is a top contributor and which is also a client of Leo’s consulting firm, CRC Advisors — has not backed Bailey. So far, RAGA has not made a formal endorsement in the race, though its executive director actually donated a small amount to Scharf’s campaign. Last September, Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons, who appointed Bailey, wrote a letter to RAGA complaining about its “unprecedented and deeply concerning” lack of support for an incumbent.
RAGA and Bailey’s campaign did not respond to The Intercept’s questions, including whether Leo’s support for Scharf impacted RAGA’s decision not to back Bailey.
Longstanding Ties
Scharf has a longstanding relationship with Leo and the Concord Fund, which was previously called the Judicial Crisis Network.
Scharf’s campaign website emphasizes that he “played an instrumental role” in building “the most conservative Supreme Court in almost a century” by helping with the confirmation battles over Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
For both confirmations, Scharf would have worked closely with Leo, who was the Trump administration’s “court whisperer.”
Related
The Supreme Court Wants a Dictator]
Kavanaugh’s confirmation took place in the summer and fall of 2018. During this period, Scharf was a consultant for the Judicial Crisis Network, according to profiles when Scharf first announced his candidacy. (Scharf’s LinkedIn profile indicates he was a self-employed “consultant” and “portfolio manager” for an undisclosed “private foundation” at the time.)
Scharf joined CRC Advisors in January 2020, around the same time that Leo announced he was stepping down as executive vice president of the Federalist Society to join the firm.
In September 2020, Scharf joined the Justice Department, where he served as nominations counsel at the Office of Legal Policy, according to his LinkedIn. The same month, Trump nominated Barrett to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Since Scharf left the Justice Department for private practice, he continued working alongside Leo as part of the membership committee for Teneo, a private network for conservatives that Leo chairs.
Leo and others at CRC Advisors were early backers of Scharf’s campaign. Leo gave $2,650 to Scharf in December 2022, as did the CEO of CRC Advisors, Greg Mueller, and its president, Jonathan Bunch, who is also a trustee of Leo’s primary dark-money vehicle the Marble Freedom Trust.
The firm’s chief financial officer, Neil Corkery — who is listed as the keeper of records for multiple Leo-linked groups, including the Marble Freedom Trust, Rule of Law Trust, the 85 Fund, and the defunct BH Fund — chipped in $1,000 to Scharf’s campaign in February 2023. The same month, Corkery’s wife, Ann, who works for the 85 Fund, also contributed $1,000.
A handful of lower-ranking CRC Advisors employees also contributed to Scharf’s campaign since 2022.
As observers of the race have pointed out, there is almost no daylight between Scharf and Bailey when it comes to campaign issues. But only one of them has Leo’s blessing and the cash that comes with it
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an 6 24
In a majority decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett slapped down the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision Wednesday.
Red states and conservatives sued President Joe Biden's administration for coordinating with social media companies to help tamp down misinformation about the pandemic in 2021.
According to the Supreme Court majority in the *Murthy v. Missouri* case, the parties didn't have standing to sue.
It reverses the conservative Fifth Circuit, which said communications between governmental officials and social media platforms meant that the government officials were regulating content-moderation decisions for the platform.
"The Fifth Circuit was wrong to do so," wrote Barrett.
According to SCOTUS Blog reporter Amy Howe, "The challengers contend that the restrictions that they experienced in the past on social media platforms could be attributed to the defendants and that the platforms will continue to censor their speech."
The Supreme Court rejected the idea, writing that the "platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment. To be sure, the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some of the platforms' moderation choices. But the Fifth Circuit, by attributing every platform decision at least in part to the defendants, glossed over complexities in the evidence."
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npr? 6? 24
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An election partnership that Wilcox helps lead has even stopped advertising a service that allows local officials to report false voting information online, for fear of conservative backlash — a sign of broader concerns of those who work to safeguard elections as America nears another round of presidential voting.
Experts say a campaign of legal and political pressure from the right has cast efforts to combat rumors and conspiracy theories as censorship. And as a result, they say, the tools and partnerships that tried to flag and tamp down on falsehoods in recent election cycles have been scaled back or dismantled. That's even as threats loom from foreign governments and artificial intelligence, and as former President Donald Trump, who still falsely claims to have won the 2020 contest, is likely to use the same tactics again as he pursues the White House in 2024.
Added Wilcox: "Everybody is gun-shy."
"Open season"
As Nina Jankowicz sees it, the opening salvo came in the spring of 2022, when a right-wing campaign quickly snuffed out a Department of Homeland Security initiative called the Disinformation Governance Board.
She joined DHS to fight disinformation. She says she was halted by... disinformation
Jankowicz, who has written books about Russian information operations and online harassment, was tapped to lead the board. The federal government described it as a working group, without "any operational authority or capability," tasked with coordinating efforts to identify false and misleading claims and share facts about security concerns, from elections to natural disasters.
But the combination of the board's ominous-sounding name and DHS's poor efforts to communicate its purpose made it catnip for right-wing influencers, who quickly seized on the board and Jankowicz herself as avatars of a nefarious plot to censor Americans.
"The Biden Administration's decision to stand up a 'Ministry of Truth,' is dystopian in design," said now-House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., shortly after the board was announced. "The government has no role whatsoever in determining what constitutes truth or acceptable speech."
Supporters of former President Donald Trump look at merchandise ahead of his rally in Hialeah, Fla., this week. Trump continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election, fueling conspiracy theories around the voting process.
Ricardo Ardeuengo/AFP via Getty Images
After a barrage of death threats and abuse, Jankowicz resigned, and DHS scrapped the board altogether. Jankowicz told NPR that the timid effort by the federal government to defend her or push back against the allegations sent a clear message.
"That showed ... that it was open season on researchers, on civil servants, on anyone who was working in this space," Jankowicz said.
Amid that furor, in May 2022, the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of colluding with social media companies to censor conservative speech, by pressing platforms to take action on misleading posts about COVID-19 and elections.
Supreme Court to hear court ban on government contact with social media companies
This July, a Trump-appointed federal judge ruled the government had likely violated the First Amendment and issued a sweeping injunction blocking agencies' communications with platforms about most content. The injunction was narrowed by an appeals court, before being put on hold last month by the Supreme Court, which is slated to hear the case this term.
Pressure is coming from Congress as well, where the House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a Trump ally, is conducting its own probe into alleged collusion between the Biden administration and tech companies to unconstitutionally shut down political speech.
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texas too?
ymail 11 23
stephen Miller, the notorious advisor to former president Donald Trump, suggested on X yesterday that a "conservative state Attorney[] General" should pursue civil and criminal charges against Media Matters. Miller claims that Media Matters committed "fraud" by reporting that X was displaying ads from major brands next to white nationalist and neo-Nazi posts. X has accused Media Matters of "completely misrepresent[ing] the real user experience on X." But, according to X's own statement, all Media Matters did was create an account, follow some users, and observe what ads were displayed.
Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," responded favorably to Miller's proposal to subject journalists to criminal prosecution, declaring it "interesting." But the idea that Media Matters' conduct is legally actionable is absurd, especially since X has already admitted that ads were displayed next to the posts identified by Media Matters.
Nevertheless, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) took Miller up on his suggestion. "My team is looking into this matter," Bailey posted in response to Musk.
Bailey expanded on his investigation of Media Matters' reporting in an interview on Newsmax, a far-right cable channel:
The Missouri Attorney General's Office is tasked in statute with protecting Missouri consumers. That means consumers that participate on social media platforms as well. And so if we have an instance where there was a deceptive or fraudulent business practice where Media Matters was using some sort of coercive or fraudulent algorithms or advertising, that's going to be problematic on the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.
It does not appear that Bailey gave this "investigation" much thought. Media Matters’ conduct did not involve "fraudulent algorithms" or "advertising." And the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act only applies to "the sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce." Media Matters was not selling anything.
But Bailey's announcement should not come as a surprise. Bailey has never been elected by the people of Missouri. He was appointed to his position in January by Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R). Since then, Bailey has brazenly exceeded the legal authority of his office to grab headlines. Bailey is running for a full term in 2024 and is seeking to make sure he is not outflanked from the right in the Republican primary.
Bailey circumvents legislature, announces "emergency" rule on trans medical care
In March 2023, Bailey announced that he was unilaterally implementing emergency regulations that would impose severe restrictions on transgender hormone therapy for children and adults. What authority did Bailey cite to justify circumventing the legislature? The Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. Bailey's actions were condemned by Democrats and Republicans.
Bailey proposed requiring 15 hourly therapy sessions over 18 months before any person could receive hormone therapy. Doctors would also need to certify that "for at least the 3 most recent consecutive years, the patient has exhibited a medically documented, long-lasting, persistent and intense pattern of gender dysphoria" and "any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved." Further, doctors would need to have in place a system to monitor "all patients beginning the first day of intervention and continuing for a period of not fewer than 15 years."
Bailey claimed he had the authority to issue these rules — the first in the country limiting hormone therapy for adults — because "gender transition interventions are experimental and have significant side effects." But hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments are not experimental. They have existed for decades and are supported as medically necessary by the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.
Prominent Missouri Republicans harshly criticized Bailey's efforts. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) blasted Bailey for exceeding his authority. "If you're an adult, you have the capacity to make your own decisions," Ashcroft said. "I don't believe it's the role of [the] government to forbid it."
Trans advocates sued to block Bailey's rule, and it was temporarily blocked by a state judge. In May, the Missouri legislature then passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. Shortly thereafter, facing increasing criticism from all sides, Bailey withdrew the rule.
Bailey claimed protecting reproductive rights in Missouri would cost taxpayers $50 billion
Reproductive rights supporters are seeking to put the Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment on the state ballot in 2024. (Missouri banned most abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe). The amendment would enshrine "the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care," including abortion, in the Missouri Constitution. Reasonable restrictions on abortions after "fetal viability" would be permitted.
Bailey's role in this matter is very limited. Before the organizers can collect signatures, Bailey must certify that "the proposed ballot language isn't more than 50 words, and that it includes the auditor's cost estimate." Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick (R), an abortion opponent, estimated that the amendment would cost the state about $51,000 annually.
"Even though I would prefer to be able to say these initiative petitions will cost the state billions of dollars, I have a responsibility to the people of Missouri to not allow my personal beliefs to prevent the Auditor’s office from providing a fair cost estimate based on facts," Fitzpatrick said.
Bailey, however, refused to certify the amendment because he claimed the real cost was not $51,000, but over $50 billion. According to Bailey, if the state protected abortion rights, it would lose $12.5 billion in Medicaid funding. (This is not true.) Bailey also claimed that the amendment would "cost the state billions more in lost revenue because future taxpayers wouldn't be born." A state judge rejected both of those arguments.
Undeterred, Bailey then claimed the cost of another proposed constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights was $21 million. Bailey said that, as an opponent of abortion rights, he could not in good conscience defend the amendment as Missouri's Attorney General. Therefore, he would have to hire outside counsel to do his job. Those lawyers, Bailey claimed, would cost $21 million annually. That figure was included in the descriptions of the amendment for voters drafted by Secretary of State Ashcroft.
Bailey's unprecedented effort to overturn a manslaughter conviction
Earlier this summer, Bailey asked a judge to throw out the conviction of a white police officer who killed a 26-year-old Black man outside his home in 2019. The former detective, Eric DeValkenaere, was found guilty of “second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action” in the death of Cameron Lamb. DeValkenaere claimed that he fired his gun after Lamb pointed a gun at his partner, Troy Schwalm. But a judge rejected this defense, arguing that the officers “had no probable cause to believe [Lamb] had committed a crime, had no warrant for Lamb’s arrest and had no search warrant or consent to be on the property,” the AP reported. Prosecutors also claimed that the officers planted a gun on Lamb after the shooting.
Bailey, however, insists the conviction was based on insufficient evidence. “DeValkenaere’s use of force was reasonable in light of Mr. Lamb’s use of deadly force against Schwalm, and the court erred as a matter of fact and law in determining that Schwalm and DeValkenaere were the initial aggressors,” Bailey’s office argued.
But experts say that Bailey’s move is unusual. As the Kansas City Star wrote, the state’s Attorney General office “has historically fought to defend convictions.” Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor whose office secured the conviction, called the reversal “unprecedented” and “disappointing.”
“I’ve been doing this work for 40 years. And I can just say, I’ve not been involved — in the scores and scores and scores of murder cases I’ve tried — where the attorney general came in and filed a brief seeking to reverse a conviction I obtained,” Tim Dollar, a private attorney who assisted with the prosecution, said.
In October, a three-judge panel rejected Bailey's position and "ruled unanimously that there had been enough evidence" for a conviction. DeValkenaere began serving his six-year sentence that month after spending two years free on bond while his appeal was pending.
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AG bailey pow target leo?
court > AG 7 23
https://www.alternet.org/missouri-supreme-court-abortion-ballot/
in deep red Missouri, abortion rights activists have been fighting to get an abortion initiative on the ballot. But Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has been holding it up.
On Thursday, July 20, however, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ordered Bailey to let the measure go forward. The initiative would ask Missouri residents to vote on whether or not abortion should be illegal in the state.
The justices, according to the Associated Press, were critical of Bailey, describing his arguments against the measure as "incorrect" and "misleading."
READ MORE:Iowa Republicans’ 6-week abortion ban to take effect immediately: report
Missouri resident Anna Fitz-James, a plaintiff in the case, is being represented by the Missouri ACLU. And the justices ruled that Bailey was violating her constitutional rights by holding the measure up.
The justices wrote, "Until the official ballot title is certified — a critical step being held up solely by the Attorney General's unjustified refusal to act — Fitz-James cannot challenge that title in circuit court or circulate her petitions. Fitz-James' constitutional right of initiative petition is being obstructed, and the deadline for submitting signed petitions draws nearer every day."
The Missouri ACLU applauded the Court's ruling.
In an official statement, the Missouri ACLU's executive director Luz María Henríquezi seemed to be referencing Bailey when she said, "While today is a tremendous victory for Missourians and the right to direct democracy, it is clear that some who hold office will not hesitate to trample the constitution if it advances their personal interests and political beliefs."
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https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/key-qanon-influencer-hosts-missouri-ag-promote-case-has-limited-governments
no lnx audio vid?
Key QAnon influencer hosts Missouri AG to promote case that has limited government's ability to discuss misinformation with tech platforms
WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN
PUBLISHED 08/04/23
On August 1 and 2, QAnon influencer Tracy “Beanz” Diaz, who was a key figure behind the conspiracy theory’s spread on social media, hosted Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and allowed him to promote thecase Missouri v. Biden, which has resulted in a judge barring President Joe Biden’s administration from interacting with social media platforms regarding possible misinformation.
Diaz was reportedly one of the three key figures who popularized QAnon online and organized a 2018 QAnon rally in Washington, D.C.
On July 4, a federal judge issued an injunction in Missouri v. Biden, barring the federal government from contacting platforms and asking to remove misinformation. The judge in the case, which focuses on whether the government is constitutionally allowed to contact social media platforms to request removal of alleged misinformation, repeated right-wing claims that social media platforms have censored conservative voices — which have been repeatedly debunked.An appeals court has currently stayed that injunction.
Diaz hosted Bailey for an August 1 interview on Twitter Spaces — which has become a popular place for previously suspended accounts that owner Elon Musk reinstated, including Diaz, to spread misinformation on the platform. During the interview, Bailey told Diaz that the lawsuit was “the most important First Amendment suit in at least a generation,” and Diaz said she had been “kind of pounding the pavement” regarding the lawsuit.
Beginning of Tracy Diaz’s Twitter Space with Andrew Bailey
AUGUST 1, 2023
CitationFrom an August 1, 2023, Twitter Space hosted by Tracy Diaz
TRACY DIAZ (HOST): OK, hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I’m super excited about this Space.I’ve had several Spaces about this case, and I’m really honored to be joined by Attorney General Andrew Bailey from Missouri to work with us on this. They’ve never done a Space before. I sent the invite for them to speak. They have my phone number. So if you have a problem, attorney general, just shoot me a text real quick and I will work with you to get this up and running. We have a couple questions from folks really eager to hear your perspective on things. And it’s going to be good stuff for sure.
…
So thanks for being here today. Super awesome of you to spend the time. Everybody in this Space is very interested in this case.
…
ANDREW BAILEY (MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL): Yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on and the opportunity to chat with you. And this is the most important First Amendment suit in at least a generation.
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But, you know, again, this [is]frightening stuff, and we're not going to let Joe Biden destroy the First Amendment.
DIAZ: Which is awesome. And, you know, I’ve been kind of pounding the pavement on this.
At the end of the Twitter Space, Diaz asked Bailey to say something “hopeful about the outcome” of the lawsuit to her followers.
End of Tracy Diaz’s Twitter Space with Andrew Bailey
AUGUST 1, 2023
Audio
CitationFrom an August 1, 2023, Twitter Space hosted by Tracy Diaz
TRACY DIAZ (HOST): Really gracious of you to give us a half hour of your time today. We're about three minutes out. Is there anything that you would like to say to all the folks here listening and who will listen to this after we’re done about, you know, being hopeful about the outcome of this or keeping faith in the Justice Department, at least for the litigation of this case and what it means?
ANDREW BAILEY (MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL): Well, we’re not going to let up. Again, we’re going to continue to fight to preserve the First Amendment right to free speech in America. You know, at the end of the day,I served in the United States Army in the war on terror and took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. I was willing to put my life on the line to do it. Took that fight to the battlefield in the war on terror. That’s an oath I’ll never give up and it’s a fight I’m proud to be leading on behalf of the state of Missouri in the courtrooms across this nation, in the state of Missouri today.
DIAZ: Thank you so much. This has been really awesome. I really appreciate your time. All of us in here are following this daily. And a lot of people are really invested in it because it’s so important. So I appreciate you being here. Really, really awesome.
BAILEY: Well, thanks for having me on. Look forward to giving an update here in the coming days, weeks, and months.
Bailey also appeared on Diaz’s podcast on August 2, when Diaz complained that she had been banned from multiple platforms, and asked for how to “rectify what’s happened.” In response, Bailey expressed concern about “how many listeners do you have that were deprived of the information that you would have gotten to them.”
Video
CitationFrom the August 2, 2023, edition of Dark to Light
TRACY DIAZ (HOST): But me, I was censored off of Twitter. I’ve been censored off of Facebook. I’ve been debanked. I’ve been all — I can’t use PayPal. I’m censored. What — if this goes the way we think it will and you win, what does the everyday American — how can they rectify what’s happened to them, based on the [UNINTELLIGIBLE]?
ANDREW BAILEY (MISSOURI ATTORNEY GENERAL): Well, first of all, we can all celebrate the fact that we get our First Amendment right to free speech back. I mean, I think that was my tweet on July 4, like happy birthday, America, you get your First Amendment free speech back and we’ll keep fighting to do that. The wall of separation between tech and state is absolutely essential to protect all of our rights.
And, you know, whether there’s class certification or not, it is a nationwide injunction, and we’ll keep pushing forward with that nationwide injunction. It’s the state of Missouri v. Biden, Louisiana is on board and certainly there are private plaintiffs, but all Americans who have been censored on Big Tech social media platforms and any American — it’s not just those speakers who have been censored. That’s the important thing to remember, too. You might have been speaking, but how many listeners do you have that were deprived of the information that you would have gotten to them? It's the hearers of the information. And so it’s an exponential number of individuals whose constitutional rights to say and hear what they choose, absent government censorship, those rights have been violated, and that’s why the nationwide injunction is so important, and we’ll keep fighting to achieve that objective.
DIAZ: This is the most important civil rights case in modern history, hands down. There’s no doubt about it. I was saying it the day you filed the complaint and people are finally starting to catch up with how important this is. Attorney general, thank you so much for joining us today.
BAILEY: Thank you so much for having me on.
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KIDS
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/politics/missouri-gender-affirming-care-trans-restriction/index.html
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ref nyt
bing steal no lnx
G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation Ahead of 2024 Election
A legal campaign against universities and think tanks seeks to undermine the fight against false claims about elections, vaccines and other hot political topics.
By Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel
June 19, 2023
On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online.
The effort has encumbered its targets with expansive requests for information and, in some cases, subpoenas — demanding notes, emails and other information related to social media companies and the government dating back to 2015. Complying has consumed time and resources and already affected the groups’ ability to do research and raise money,according to several people involved.
They and others warned that the campaign undermined the fight against disinformation in American society when the problem is, by most accounts, on the rise— and when another presidential election is around the corner. Many of those behind the Republican effort had also joined former President Donald J. Trump in falsely challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“I think it’s quite obviously a cynical — and I would say wildly partisan — attempt to chill research,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director ofColumbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute,an organization that works to safeguard freedom of speech and the press.
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The House Judiciary Committee, which in January came under Republican majority control, has sent scores of letters and subpoenas to the researchers — only some of which have been made public. It has threatened legal action against those who have not responded quickly or fully enough.
A conservative advocacy group led by Stephen Miller, the former adviser to Mr. Trump, filed a class-action lawsuit last month in U.S. District Court in Louisiana that echoes many of the committee’s accusations and focuses on some of the same defendants.
Targets include Stanford, Clemson and New York Universities and the University of Washington; the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund and the National Conference on Citizenship, all nonpartisan, nongovernmental organizations in Washington; the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco; and Graphika, a company that researches disinformation online.
In a related line of inquiry, the committee has also issued a subpoena to the World Federation of Advertisers, a trade association, and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media it created. The committee’s Republican leaders have accused the groups of violating antitrust laws by conspiring to cut off advertising revenue for content researchers and tech companies found to be harmful.
A House subcommittee was created to scrutinize what Republicans have charged is a government effort to silence conservatives. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
The committee’s chairman, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a close ally of Mr. Trump, has accused the organizations of “censorship of disfavored speech” involving issues that have galvanized the Republican Party: the policies around the Covid-19 pandemic and the integrity of the American political system, including the outcome of the 2020 election.
Much of the disinformation surrounding both issues has come from the right. Many Republicans are convinced that researchers who study disinformation have pressed social media platforms to discriminate against conservative voices.
[The Spread of Misinformation and Falsehoods
The Titanic Truthers of TikTok: On the app, long-established facts about the 1912 disaster are being newly litigated as musty rumors merge with fresh misinformation and manipulated content.
A Global Effort: A group of scholars introduced an international panel to study online misinformation, inspired by the way scientists documented the global effect of carbon emissions.
A Hub for Conspiracy Theories: The Denver airport is a magnet for tall tales inspired by the paranormal — and an experiment into whether, sometimes, institutional fabulism can just be fun.
Climate Lies: In 2021, Google said that it would stop running ads alongside content that denied climate change. But a report shows that one of its platforms, YouTube, has continued to profit from videos pushing misinformation on the topic.]
Those complaints have been fueled by Twitter’s decision under its new owner, Elon Musk, to release selected internal communications between government officials and Twitter employees. The communications show government officials urging Twitter to take action against accounts spreading disinformation but stopping short of ordering them to do, as some critics claimed.
Patrick L. Warren, an associate professor at Clemson University, said researchers at the school have provided documents to the committee, and given some staff members a short presentation. “I think most of this has been spurred by our appearance in the Twitter files, which left people with a pretty distorted sense of our mission and work,” he said.
Last year, the Republican attorneys general of BAILEY Missouri and Louisiana LANDRY sued the Biden administration in U.S. District Court in Louisiana, arguing that government officials effectively cajoled or coerced Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms by threatening legislative changes. The judge, Terry A. Doughty, rejected a defense motion to dismiss the lawsuit in March.
The current campaign’s focus is not government officials but rather private individuals working for universities or nongovernmental organizations. They have their own First Amendment guarantees of free speech, including their interactions with the social media companies.
The group behind the class action, America First Legal, named as defendants two researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, Alex Stamos and Renée DiResta; a professor at the University of Washington, Kate Starbird; an executive of Graphika, Camille François; and the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, Graham Brookie.
If the lawsuit proceeds, they could face trial and, potentially, civil damages if the accusations are upheld.
Mr. Miller, the president of America First Legal, did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement last month, he said the lawsuit was “striking at the heart of the censorship-industrial complex.”
The researchers, who have been asked by the House committee to submit emails and other records, are also defendants in the lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana. The plaintiffs include Jill Hines, a director of Health Freedom Louisiana, an organization that has been accused of disinformation, and Jim Hoft, the founder of the Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news site. The court in the Western District of Louisiana has, under Judge Doughty, become a favored venue for legal challenges against the Biden administration.
The attacks use “the same argument that starts with some false premises,” said Jeff Hancock, the founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, which is not a party to any of the legal action. “We see it in the media, in the congressional committees and in lawsuits, and it is the same core argument, with a false premise about the government giving some type of direction to the research we do.”
The House Judiciary Committee has focused much of its questioning on two collaborative projects. One was the Election Integrity Partnership, which Stanford and the University of Washington formed before the 2020 electionto identify attempts “to suppress voting, reduce participation, confuse voters or delegitimize election results without evidence.” The other, also organized by Stanford, was called the Virality Project and focused on the spread of disinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.
Both subjects have become political lightning rods, exposing the researchers to partisan attacks online that have become ominously personal at times.
In the case of the Stanford Internet Observatory, the requests for information — including all emails — have even extended to students who volunteered to work as interns for the Election Integrity Partnership.
A central premise of the committee’s investigation — and the other complaints about censorship — is that the researchers or government officials had the power or ability to shut down accounts on social media. They did not, according to former employees at Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, who said the decision to punish users who violated platform rules belonged solely to the companies.
No evidence has emerged that government officials coerced the companies to take action against accounts, even when the groups flagged problematic content.
“We have not only academic freedom as researchers to conduct this research but freedom of speech to tell Twitter or any other company to look at tweets we might think violate rules,” Mr. Hancock said.
The universities and research organizations have sought to comply with the committee’s requests, though the collection of years of emails has been a time-consuming task complicated by issues of privacy. They face mounting legal costs and questions from directors and donors about the risks raised by studying disinformation. Online attacks have also taken a toll on morale and, in some cases, scared away students.
In May, Mr. Jordan, the committee’s chairman, threatened Stanford with unspecified legal action for not complying with a previously issued subpoena, even though the university’s lawyers have been negotiating with the committee’s lawyers over how to shield students’ privacy. (Several of the students who volunteered are identified in the America First Legal lawsuit.)
The committee declined to discuss details of the investigation, including how many requests or subpoenas it has filed in total. Nor has it disclosed how it expects the inquiry to unfold — whether it would prepare a final report or make criminal referrals and, if so, when. In its statements, though, it appears to have already reached a broad conclusion.
“The Twitter files and information from private litigation show how the federal government worked with social media companies and other entities to silence disfavored speech online,” a spokesman, Russell Dye, said in a statement. “The committee is working hard to get to the bottom of this censorship to protect First Amendment rights for all Americans.”
The partisan controversy is having an effect on not only the researchers but also the social media giants.
Twitter, under Mr. Musk, has made a point of lifting restrictions and restoring accounts that had been suspended, including the Gateway Pundit’s. YouTube recently announced that it would no longer ban videos that advanced “false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past U.S. presidential elections.”
Steven Lee Myers covers misinformation for The Times. He has worked in Washington, Moscow, Baghdad and Beijing, where he contributed to the articles that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2021. He is also the author of “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.” @stevenleemyers • Facebook
Sheera Frenkel is a prize-winning technology reporter based in San Francisco. In 2021, she and Cecilia Kang published “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination.” @sheeraf
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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2023/06/16/leonard-leo-bankrolls-former-lieutenant-to-challenge-gop-incumbent-in-missouris-2024-race-for-ag
Trump’s “judge whisperer” Leonard Leo, the Christian conservative largely responsible for moving the federal court system to the far right in the past decade, is deploying his powerful network to get a friend and former employee elected as Missouri’s next attorney general.
Will Scharf, a former federal prosecutor who worked briefly as a vice president at Leo’s public relations firm CRC Advisors, is challenging sitting Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) in the August 2024 GOP primary—and leaping ahead of him in campaign cash.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons (R) appointed Bailey to replace former Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R), who was elected to the U.S. Senate last November. But the new attorney general has seen an exodus of key Schmitt staffers since taking office in January, one of whom told the National Review that, “Bailey is not going to be the conservative fighter that Eric Schmitt was.” Given his more “business-friendly” approach, conservative activists are concerned that he won’t have Schmitt’s “appetite for pushing back against critical race theory in schools” or going after “woke” corporations, the National Review reported.
Widely known for his tremendous influence in reshaping the U.S. Supreme Court and moving the federal judiciary to the right, Leo is now aiming to “counter what he sees as an increasing leftward tilt in society,” according to The New York Times.
InJanuary 2020, Leo told *Axios* that he was stepping down from running the right-wing Federalist Society to lead CRC Advisors with communications executive Greg Mueller, starting with a “minimum $10 million issue advocacy campaign focusing on judges in the 2020 cycle.” Still, Leo remains closely involved with the Federalist Society as co-chair of its board of directors.
Scharf, who served as president of a Federalist Society chapter as a law student at Harvard from 2008–11, also reportedly worked as a consultant for Leo’s Judicial Crisis Network (JCN)—since rebranded The Concord Fund—where he was “actively involved” in getting Brett Kavanaugh confirmed as one of Trump’s picks for the Supreme Court.
Both Leo and Mueller, along with Mueller’s wife Charmaine, have maxed out their individual contributions to their hand-picked candidate’s campaign, according to Citizens for Scharf’s January filing. That month, the candidate told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he considers Leo “a dear friend and mentor.”
Of the $575,000 raised by Defend Missouri, the political action committee supporting Scharf’s run, $500,000 has come from Leo’s Concord Fund, according to the PAC’s April filing.
If Scharf defeats Bailey and wins in the general election, he will likely join the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a cash-for-influence operation that coordinates the official actions of Republican state attorneys general and sells its corporate funders access to them and their staff.
The Concord Fund is on record as the largest donor to RAGA in 2020, 2021, and 2022, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported, giving $4 million last year alone. In 2019, RAGA presented Leo with a “special award” for helping to “shape the trajectory of RAGA and the conservative legal movement more than anyone else.”
RAGA also pays Leo’s Creative Response Concepts—now known as CRC Advisors—$7,500 per month for “consulting,” according to 2022 IRS filings.
In 2022, RAGA Executive Director Peter Bisbee and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey spurned Bailey, their RAGA colleague, and contributed $250 and $2,000, respectively, to Scharf instead.
Disclosures reveal that in addition to Leo and Mueller, other executives at CRC Advisors have also supported Scharf’s campaign, with CFO Neil Corkery and his wife Ann each contributing $1,000, President Jonathan Bunch and his wife Amanda each giving $2,650, and Senior Executive Maria Marshall donating $1,000.
For years, the Corkerys have served at the center of Leo’s dark money network. Ann is listed in the filing as an attorney for The 85 Fund, one of Leo’s right-wing funding vehicles, and earns $256,000 per year as a counsel for The Concord Fund. In addition to his role at CRC Advisors, Neil has worked for Leo as treasurer of the JCN, president of the Judicial Education Project (as it was known before being renamed The 85 Fund), treasurer of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, and president of the now-shuttered Wellspring Committee.
Other Leo operatives who lead organizations at the center of the Right’s culture wars have also contributed to Scharf’s campaign. Will Hild, executive director of the Leo-funded group Consumers’ Research that is on the frontlines in the attacks on so-called “woke capitalism;” and Nicole Neily, president of the nonprofitParents Defending Education that is purportedly fighting for parents’ rights, both contributed smaller amounts—in the hundreds—to Bailey’s challenger.
Donor at the Center of the Supreme Court Ethics Scandal Backs Scharf
Real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy, close friends of Leo and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni, maxed out contributions at $2,650 each to Scharf, according to his April campaign filing.
In April, ProPublicareported that Thomas has been accepting luxury trips and lavish gifts from Crow for over 20 years without disclosing them. The story featured a painting—unearthed by True North Research— hanging in Crow’s private resort that depicts him, Thomas, Leo, and others “discussing the law” and illustrates the extremely tight relationship between these men.
Another close associate of Leo’s, the right-wing philanthropist Roger Hertog, gave https://www.mec.mo.gov/CampaignFinanceReports/Generator.aspx?Keys=B2G41dEVPKgI8cDcdGFsgJsm99XwPL2GsUCWbUlfMr0QoUFTilTH3rvZPcTKwORHP6frqbjz1kQ%2bQsn%2fLxrZKI7CJPRcva8W" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; color: rgb(0, 156, 244); text-decoration-line: none;">
$50,000, the second largest donation made to Defend Missouri. He and Leo have been working together in similar activist circles since at least 2005....Rounding out the leading contributions to Defend Missouri are right-wing donors IsaacPerlmutter, chairman of Marvel Entertainment, and his wife Laura,who together gave $25,000. Perlmutter has emerged as a major GOP donor since Trump’s first presidential run in 2016.
According to Scharf’s January and April filings, other major GOP donors who have jumped in early to support his campaign committee include:
Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team: $2,825
Randy Kendrick, general manager of the Diamondbacks: $2,825
Suzie Kovner, wife of retired billionaire hedge fund manager Bruce Kovner: $2,000
Robert Kraft, chairman of Kraft Group and owner of the New England Patriots football team: $2,825
Bernard Marcus, retired founder and CEO of Home Depot: $2,825
Paul Singer, billionaire co-CEO of Elliott Investment Management: $2,650...">Deborah Hochberg, senior advisor at The Paul E. Singer Foundation: $2,825... zzz About David Armiak
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=== zzz kos 2 23 https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/20/2148285/-Florida-warns-pharmacies-not-to-dispense-abortion-pills-despite-federal-law-allowing-so
...florida isn’t the only state to warn pharmacies of dispensing abortion bills despite the federal law—in total there are 20. A letter from Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey was sent to CVS and WalgreensWednesday warning them not to dispense abortion pills, the letter was co-signed by 19 other attorneys general, the Associated Pressreported.
While Bailey did not specify what legal action he would take if the pharmacies began selling abortion pills to Missourians by mail, he warned them of the restrictions the states had in place. The letter was co-signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
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st . LOUIS (AP) — Attorneys general in 20 conservative-led states warned CVS and Walgreens on
Wednesday that they could face legal consequences if they sell abortion pills by mail in those states.
A letter from Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to the nation’s largest pharmacy-dispensing companies was co-signed by 19 other attorneys general, warning that sale of abortion pills would violate federal law and abortion laws in many states. Missouri is among states that implemented strict abortion prohibitions last summer after the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
Bailey didn’t specify what legal action he would take if the pharmacies begin selling abortion pills to Missourians by mail.
“I will enforce the laws as written,” Bailey said in a statement in response to questions from The Associated Press. “That includes laws protecting the health of women and their unborn children. The FDA rule is in direct violation of federal law, and the unelected bureaucrats at the FDA have no authority to change Missouri law, either. The people’s elected representatives have spoken on the issue of abortion in our state, and we will fight to uphold that in court.”...bad code...>Lawsuit: WVa abortion ban irrational, unconstitutional...bad code A spokesman for Walgreens said the company is not currently dispensing mifepristone, although they are working to become eligible through an FDA-mandated certification process, requiring pharmacies to meet specific standards in shipping, tracking and confidentially storing drug prescribing records.
“We fully understand that we may not be able to dispense Mifepristone in all locations if we are certified under the program,” a statement from spokesman Fraser Engerman read.
Messages left with CVS were not immediately returned.
On Jan. 3, the FDA finalized a rule change that broadens availability of abortion pills to many more pharmacies, including large chains and mail-order companies.
The letter to the pharmacy giants said President Joe Biden’s administration’s endorsement of abortion pills by mail is “an attempt to circumvent the right of states to protect women and children.” It was co-signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
The Missouri law was written in 2019 to go into effect if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned. It was implemented almost immediately after the Supreme Court decision was announced in June. The law makes it a felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison to perform or induce an abortion. Medical professionals who do so also could lose their licenses. The law says that women undergoing abortions cannot be prosecuted.