Embattled Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is now trying to claim she misunderstood a question about her confusing legal background.
Zacharia has had a difficult first week, with doubts about her history and a disastrous first press briefing that lasted 14 minutes. She attended law school at Pepperdine University, but there is no evidence that she was admitted to the bar in any U.S. state.
She raised further eyebrows after her press conference when asked where she passed the bar exam
“When I moved to China,” Zacharia stated on October 13.
Now, the newly minted press secretary told the New York Times it’s all been a misunderstanding.
“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” Zacharia told the outlet.
“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she added. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”
While Zacharia's explanation helps detail her odd answer about taking the bar exam, there is still little proof she was an attorney in the U.S.
She has repeatedly referred to herself as a lawyer throughout her media career, before joining the White House. Trump also called her an “attorney” in his Truth Social post announcing her to the role.
Zacharia graduated from law school in 2011 and worked for Chinese firm Zhong Long. There she claimed to be “outside counsel” to the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
The nonprofit Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint this week with the State Bar of California and claimed that Zacharia has “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practice law without a license to do so, conduct California law treats as a crime.”
“Ms. Zacharia has represented herself as a lawyer repeatedly to buttress her reputation and credibility as a television legal commentator and now as the White House spokesperson, yet it seems it was all a lie,” according to the group’s executive director Michelle Kuppersmith.
“In California, calling yourself a lawyer without a license isn’t puffery; it’s a crime,” she added. “The State Bar should investigate whether Ms. Zacharia has misled the public about her credentials and hold her accountable if she has.”
The White House has defended Zacharia and her background.
“This group that filed the ‘complaint’ is a radical leftist organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” communications director Steven Cheung wrote on X. “Nobody takes them seriously because they are deranged lowlifes.”
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