Trump's New Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Admits She Never Passed the Bar Exam
According to The Guardian, Zacharia acknowledged on Fox News that she failed the bar exam and never retook it, despite previously identifying herself as a lawyer on social media.
What happened
According to The Guardian's reporting on a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Katie Zacharia admitted she never passed the bar exam. When asked if she took it a second time, Zacharia stated: "I graduated Pepperdine, got married in the same week, and we had all intend to move out to China. I had already pre-registered for the bar exam. And during basically during the summer, I knew I would be living in China, and the results of the bar were inconsequential. And I sat for it because I didn't want to have a withdraw status. And then I moved over to China and where I did get a job in an international practice of a Chinese law firm, I was doing multi cross country border transactions and multimillion dollar shareholder agreements." She confirmed she did not take the bar exam a second time. When confronted about identifying herself as an attorney in social media posts, Zacharia stated she thought "they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said those not endorsing the title, they were retweets of a title that had been given." Her first appearance as press secretary on Tuesday reportedly involved taking questions from only three outlets and ending the briefing after 14 minutes.
Context
Zacharia's credential claims are significant because the position of White House press secretary carries substantial public-facing authority and responsibility for representing the administration. Her distinction between calling herself a "lawyer" versus an "attorney"—a distinction she said advisers told her was permissible—appears to have been contradicted by social media posts identifying her with the latter title. The scrutiny reflects broader questions about the vetting of administration officials and the standards applied to their stated professional qualifications.
What's disputed
Whether 15 social media posts in which Zacharia identified as an attorney were original posts or retweets, and the distinction between calling oneself a "lawyer" versus an "attorney" without passing the bar exam.