Catherine Hanaway has spent much of her almost 13 months as attorney general of Missouri fighting Jew-hatred.
“I hate injustice,” the 62-year-old Republican told JNS. “That’s a big part of why I’m attracted to public service, and to law enforcement specifically.”
Hanaway, who was the first woman to serve in the Missouri state House and previously served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, recently opened a financial probe into Students for Justice in Palestine.
“A key part of our investigation is what are the sources that they’re receiving funds from, and where are they transferring those funds to,” she told JNS.
The state’s chief legal officer anticipates that it will be tough to track the anti-Israel group’s financial transfers, as her office works to establish the relationship between campus chapters and the national group. She was warned that they “flow their money through a lot of different organizations,” she told JNS.
A campus chapter claimed that it was not affiliated with the national group. “If they have no affiliation, why are they using the exact same branding, the exact same names?” Hanaway said.
She told JNS that she is not going after SJP’s anti-Israel rhetoric. “They absolutely have the right to speak,” she said. “It’s the activity we’re going to be looking for. Are they supporting terrorism?”
Students for Justice in Palestine is one of several investigations involving anti-Israel activists on the state attorney general’s desk.
Hanaway’s office continues to investigate former Missouri Democratic congresswoman Cori Bush’s campaign spending. The former “Squad” member blamed AIPAC for her failed reelection bid.
“We still have an open investigation on that,” Hanaway told JNS.
Hanaway also supported legislation protecting Jewish students in schools. George Hruza, a Republican state representative born in Prague who came to the United States to escape communism, introduced the bill.
“He was sharing with me that he hadn’t encountered antisemitism in the United States until after Oct. 7,” she told JNS. “He thought it was really important to move forward legislation that banned any antisemitic activity in public or private educational institutions.”
“I was proud to go and support that bill,” she told JNS. “It was passed with overwhelming support.”
‘Moved to my core’
Since assuming her role, Hanaway visited Israel on a trip organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, which took her to the site of the Nova festival massacre and a kibbutz.
As a member of the Washington University in St. Louis board, she had already encountered the domestic aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, as she reviewed the highly ranked public school’s response to campus protests.
“I had not been to Israel before,” she told JNS. “It was an eye-opening experience for me.”
The trip included dinner in a private residence, where she unexpectedly saw a member of a family from St. Louis with which she has long been friends.
Israel felt like “a small and cohesive community,” Hanaway told JNS.
“The other thing that struck me, and I don’t think you can imagine it until you experience it, was how many faith traditions are living on top of each other in Israel and doing so, for the most part, peacefully,” she said.
“People of all faith traditions are free to move all over Israel,” though “some of the Islamic areas prohibit anyone who is not Islamic from entering,” she told JNS.
As a Roman Catholic, her visits to the Jordan River and Church of the Holy Sepulchre were a highlight. “Blown away,” Hanaway said. “Moved to my core.”
A self-described “history geek,” her interest in Israel began when she read Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s autobiography as a young woman looking for examples of female world leaders.
“Her politics were much more liberal than mine, but it was still inspiring to see that a woman could really change the world in such a significant way,” Hanaway told JNS.
Born in Nebraska and raised in a rural part of the state and in Iowa, Hanaway was president of her high school 4-H club, part of a national youth development program that includes equine training. In seventh grade, she earned a National Rifle Association marksman first-class certificate. Shooting remains part of her life, she told JNS.
She doesn’t show horses anymore. “I do still shoot,” she said. “I do think it’s so important for women to have those self-defense skills.”
‘Hatred, fear seem to be best motivators’
In 2000, Hanaway managed campaign operations in Missouri for the George W. Bush presidential campaign. She told JNS that at the time, “both parties believed that there were persuadable people in the middle of the electorate, and if you made the most compelling case, you could win their votes.”
“Today, I think both parties feel that the way to win an election is to amp up their base more than the other side amps up their base,” she said. “Hatred and fear seem to be the best motivators.”
She believes there is still a middle ground, but it is “very disengaged.”
In her role, to which Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe appointed her in September 2025 after Andrew Bailey left to become a national FBI official, Hanaway divides her time between Jefferson City and St. Louis, where her husband, Chris Hanaway, works as a fund manager.
Their daughter, Lucy, 28, lives in New York, and their son John, 24, works for Hanaway as an aide and driver, which she called “a blessing.”
Hanaway intends to run for reelection in 2028, she told JNS.
