“His Audience Was Really Trump”: How New FBI Lead Used His Missouri AG Role To Wage A Culture Warfrom the missouri's-top-culture-warrior deptThis story was originally published by ProPublica. In 2022, he joined a small group of conservative attorneys general in withdrawing from the National Association of Attorneys General, a bipartisan group that had long coordinated multistate investigations in cases against industries ranging from tobacco to opioids. In a letter posted to the social media platform now known as X, Schmitt joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen in arguing that NAAG had taken a sharp “leftward shift” and that continued membership was intolerable. Few have embodied that strategy more than Paxton, who has often been described as focusing on culture war issues as attorney general. The first were voters he needed to defeat Will Scharf, a candidate already in Trump’s orbit, in the 2024 Republican primary for attorney general.