Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey recapped his first month in office. He was sworn in as Missouri’s 44th Attorney General on January 3, 2023.
“When sworn in as Missouri’s 44th Attorney General, I committed to protecting the Constitution, enforcing the laws as written, defending the state, supporting the counties, and training the next generation of public service-minded attorneys,” said Attorney General Bailey. “From handling the largest First Amendment case in a generation and protecting the rights of parents to have a say in their children’s education, to obtaining restitution for consumers and meeting with local prosecutors across the state, I am proud of what my office has accomplished in this first month. I look forward to working towards each of those goals in service to the people of Missouri in the days ahead.”As part of this fight to protect the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Attorney General Bailey achieved several milestones in his First Amendment lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, which asserts that the federal government has colluded with and coerced major social media companies to censor free speech on social media platforms. Perhaps most notably, this includes the suppression of news reports about the Hunter Biden laptop days before the 2020 election.In addition to discovering more incriminating evidence between the Biden Administration and social media companies, exposing their efforts to suppress free speech, Bailey recently filed and was granted a motion to compel discovery from five more members of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the nerve center of government censorship within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This came only days after the deposition of Brian Scully, the head of CISA’s “mis-, dis-, and mal-information” (MDM) team. This deposition revealed valuable information about the weekly meetings held in the year leading up to the 2020 election between the major social media companies and the FBI, DHS, and CISA officials. This case continues to produce disturbing evidence that DHS, the agency that was originally designed to ward off foreign cyber attacks, has switched its target to now censor disfavored, domestic speech.In an effort to enforce the laws as written, Attorney General Bailey also filed suit against the Biden administration and DHS, along with 19 other states, for allowing tens of thousands of illegal immigrants a month into the United States without a legal screening process. He also filed suit against Biden’s Department of Labor for their rule allowing 401(k) managers to direct their clients’ money into investments based on their supposed environmental impact rather than their financial returns. These ideologically based actions by federal bureaucracies, acting without Congressional authority, threaten the stability of the retirement investments of millions of Americans.In an effort to increase the supply of fuel and lower costs, Attorney General Bailey also sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency urging the Biden administration to respond to Governor Parson’s request to issue regulations allowing the sale of year-round E15 ethanol gasoline. As part of his commitment to protect the lives of the unborn, Attorney General Bailey is working to enforce state and federal law on the issue of abortion. This week, he put CVS and Walgreens pharmacies on notice that they would be violating both state and federal law if they moved forward in their decision to distribute abortion pills through the mail. The pharmacies’ threatened actions were based on a new rule put out by the FDA which abandons the longstanding ban on remote prescription and administration of abortion-inducing drugs. He led 21 other attorneys general in calling out the FDA commissioner for this reversal of current policy. Bailey also joined 17 other attorneys general in challenging President Biden’s plan to undermine the ability of states to set their own policies and turn Veteran Affairs clinics into abortion businesses. In an effort to enforce state law guiding how human sexuality is to be taught in Missouri schools, Attorney General Bailey engaged Columbia Public Schools and the City of Columbia, condemning their decision to send schoolchildren to a drag show without parental consent. He called for the resignation or termination of all CPS officials who knew or should have known that schoolchildren would be attending the drag show, and called for the Missouri School Board Association and their members to adopt a policy pledging to prohibit drag shows for children in their districts. In keeping with his statutory duty to defend the state and its consumers from fraud, Attorney General Bailey also obtained a consent judgement against Vacation Consulting Services, a Missouri-based company that offered timeshare exit services around the country, for failing to let consumers out of their timeshare agreements. The judgment resulted in $700,000 in restitution for consumers, $50,000 in civil penalties, and $50,000 to the Missouri Practices Revolving Fund, which will help pay for the State to pursue other future actions on behalf of defrauded consumers.In the first week after being sworn in, Attorney General Bailey met with legislators and staff, reaffirming his commitment to upholding the laws as written and supporting the members of his office as they undertake their important mission of protecting Missouri citizens. He travelled across the state to meet with local prosecutors and stakeholder groups, emphasizing his dedication to supporting the counties and the major industries of Missouri. Bailey also visited several of the regional Attorney General offices to meet with his staff members.As part of his commitment to train the next generation of public service-minded attorneys, Attorney General Bailey partnered with the University of Missouri School of Law to launch a law student practicum designed to help law students learn from practicing attorneys and gain real world experience while earning credit towards their law degree. “I’m passionate about the Constitution, the rule of law, and the people of this state,” said Attorney General Bailey. “I’m proud of the major successes we’ve had so far, and am excited about the future successes this office will achieve moving forward.”
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