Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced this week that he has accepted a position as the FBI's new co-deputy director alongside Deputy Dan Bongino. The move comes after last month's "conservative firestorm over the Jeffrey Epstein case," which led to Bongino threatening to resign from the bureau entirely, said Semafor. 

Bailey's attorney general resignation goes into effect on Sept. 8. And former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway has been appointed his replacement. 

During Bailey's "short stint" as Missouri AG, his tenure was largely "defined by confrontation," said The Missouri Independent. His office has faced "accusations of corruption, incompetence and grandstanding" while all the while remaining "unflinchingly loyal to Trump." Bailey had "never run for public office" before he was appointed in 2022 to replace then-Senator-elect Eric Schmitt.

Bailey's move is "undoubtedly a great loss for Missouri," said Attorney General Pam Bondi. "It's a tremendous gain for America." But his new position at the DOJ has "bewildered many current and former FBI agents" who say they have "never heard of a co-deputy director," said The New York Times. 

The newly created position is the "latest in a series of changes" being made at the Bureau by Director Kash Patel, said The Associated Press. Already, "top agents" at many of the bureau's big-city field offices have been "pushed out of their jobs." 

Bailey's new role with the FBI comes amid the "expanding nature of Trump's law and order agenda," said Fox News, noting the "large role" the FBI has had in the government's occupation of Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump has returned to one of his favorite electoral bugbears, mail-in voting, as he looks ahead to the 2026 midterm elections and the prospect of a Democratic wave that could derail his political agenda. The U.S. is the "only country in the world that uses mail-in voting," Trump falsely claimed in a post on Truth Social, vowing to "lead a movement" to abolish both mail-in voting and electronic voting machines. 

Trump had previously "shifted his tune before the 2024 election" by encouraging supporters to avail themselves of remote voting options, said Axios. Russian President Vladimir Putin told Trump during their Alaskan summit that American elections were "rigged because you have mail-in voting," Trump said to Fox News. 

Since the 2020 election, Democrats have been "significantly more likely" to utilize mail-in voting, said NPR. That gap has only grown as "GOP-led states have passed more restrictions" on the practice. 

While Trump's pledge to eliminate mail-in-ballots "seems unlikely to amount to much" given his lack of clear legal authority and inevitable wave of lawsuits, Trump's plan is "instructive in one way": The leader of the party of states' rights has "little regard" and even "disdain" for those same rights, said CNN. Moreover, Trump's "renewed crusade" threatens to "undermine his party's efforts" after the GOP spent millions boosting mail-in voting in 2024, said Politico. 

Ultimately, the answer to whether Trump can change America's voting laws by executive order "should be a clear no," said MSNBC. However, "we live in unprecedented times."

Employment data shows hundreds of thousands of Black women have left the labor market over the past few months. What's behind this mass exodus?