President Trump is bringing in backup at the FBI, installing a staunch legal ally in a newly created leadership post.

Andrew Bailey, Missouri’s attorney general, is joining the Justice Department as co-deputy director of the FBI — a position he’ll hold alongside Dan Bongino, a longtime backer of the president whose role in the administration has become more tenuous as it grapples with Jeffrey Epstein fallout.

As Missouri’s top prosecutor, Bailey positioned himself as a warrior for conservative causes, mounting challenges to abortion rights, Big Tech, student loan forgiveness and more.

Last year, he took the Biden administration to the Supreme Court over its “vast censorship enterprise,” asserting that federal officials violated the First Amendment by urging platforms to remove posts they deemed false or misleading.

The justices denied the challenge brought by Bailey by finding he did not have legal standing, leaving the First Amendment issues untouched.

Bailey also came to Trump’s defense as the president faced criminal prosecution.

Following Trump’s conviction last year on 34 counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan, the Missouri attorney general sued New York, saying the prosecution stepped on the rights of his state’s voters.

He asked the Supreme Court — which has exclusive jurisdiction over legal disputes between two or more states — to block Trump’s sentencing and a gag order until after the 2024 election. The justices rejected the plea.

“As Missouri’s Attorney General, he took on the swamp, fought weaponized government, and defended the Constitution,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump’s attorney in the hush money case, said Monday of Bailey. “Now he is bringing that fight to DOJ.”

It’s not the first time Trump has made Bailey couple up.

Trump last year endorsed both Bailey and his primary opponent, Will Scharf, as they competed to become Missouri attorney general. Scharf was one of Trump’s personal attorneys, and after losing to Bailey, he joined Trump’s White House as staff secretary. You may recognize Scharf as the person who now hands Trump executive orders to sign in the Oval Office.

It’s not apparent how Bailey’s responsibilities at the FBI will be newly split with Bongino, but the appointment of a co-deputy director seems to minimize Bongino’s role.

It comes amid reported tensions surrounding Bongino over the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

Bongino, like dozens of right-wing internet figures, was on the front lines of conspiracy theories about Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

After the Justice Department last month issued a joint memo stating Epstein did not have a client list and confirming he died by suicide, Bongino erupted. Several news outlets reported he weighed resigning over the handling of the matter and raged at agency leaders, including Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Trump told reporters last month that he still has confidence in him.

Bongino’s path to the FBI looked very different than Bailey’s.

A right-wing podcaster, Bongino was tapped as the sole deputy FBI director in February after spending years as one of the bureau’s loudest critics.

His career began in 1995 with the New York Police Department, and years later, he joined the U.S. Secret Service, where he eventually was placed on presidential protective duty for former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama.

After leaving the Secret Service in 2011, he launched several failed political campaigns before his career as an internet provocateur took off.

Despite their different paths, both Bongino and Bailey have something in common.

Neither has previously worked for the FBI, breaking the tradition of selecting someone who has risen through the agency’s ranks.

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