TRUTH ALERT: AG Andrew Bailey’s record criticized in attack ad
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
A political action committee hoping to upend Attorney General Andrew Bailey from his office has criticized some of his decisions.
But the attorney general’s campaign called many of the claims misleading, and explained to ABC 17 News some of the things Bailey has done.
The ad is produced by “Defend Missouri,” a PAC supporting Will Scharf, Bailey’s Republican opponent in the attorney general primary.
AD: "Andrew Bailey has made Missouri more dangerous.”
State crime stats don’t show the same thing.
Law enforcement agencies across the state reported fewer violent crimes to the Missouri State Highway patrol in 2023 than the two years prior. At least one major city, Kansas City, saw rising homicides last year.
Bailey’s campaign pointed to a 133% increase in the number of criminal prosecutions his office has taken on since he became attorney general. ABC 17 News asked for the number of prosecutions the office has started, but has not yet heard back.
AD: Bailey ended the Safer Streets program that prosecuted urban criminals.
Then-AG Eric Schmitt worked with federal prosecutors offices in Missouri on the Safer Streets Initiative, starting in 2019. The program deputized state assistant attorneys general as federal prosecutors to take some Missouri cases to federal court, where punishments for some crimes might be stiffer.
The partnership, though, wound down in 2022 when the Second Amendment Preservation Act complicated state and federal law around gun crimes in Missouri. The Department of Justice ended the relationship in 2022 with the St. Louis office, while Bailey did not fill the vacancies in the Kansas City prosecutor’s office a year later.
Bailey’s campaign manager James Lawson said the attorney general was committed to handling the prosecutions in his own office, and with other local law enforcement agencies. Lawson then attacked Scharf’s background as an assistant federal prosecutor in St. Louis.
“It’s not surprising that a former Biden DOJ prosecutor would advocate handing over local law enforcement control to the federal government,” Lawson said. “This is not in the best interest of Missourians.”
AD: “Bailey failed to deploy a million-dollar violent crime task force.”
State lawmakers in 2023 passed a budget that included nearly $1 million for a “violent crimes task force” in the attorney general’s office. The ad points out that Bailey’s government website makes no mention of the task force.
AD: "Bailey gave a lawyer charged with raping three women a tiny fine, no jail time."
The line refers to a 2023 plea deal worked out with former Rolla attorney Brant Shockley. The Attorney General’s Office under Josh Hawley first brought 18 sex crime charges against Shockley in 2018. Prosecutors added more to it in May 2019, including rape and sodomy. The case ended, though, in March 2023 in a plea deal for three charges of third-degree assault, all misdemeanors. A judge fined Shockley $300 for each crime, and Shockley was forced to surrender his law license.
Lawson said the plea negotiations first started under Schmitt’s tenure and that Bailey’s office saw it through. He said the attorneys and victim advocates spoke with the victims ahead of it and agreed that the deal would spare them from “the trauma of testifying.”
Lawson criticized the PAC for using the case in its ad.
“What’s worse is it does so for mere political gain,” Lawson said. “That is not only wrong, it is antithetical to the principle of victim-centric justice, and [it] grossly misleads Missouri voters.”
