Washington — White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia said Thursday that she has never passed the bar, even though she calls herself a lawyer and President Trump has called her a lawyer.
Zacharia made the comment in an interview with conservative commentator Jack Posobiec after The Wall Street Journal reported that she failed the California bar exam in 2011 and had not passed the bar in any other U.S. state in which she lived. Zacharia is a graduate of Pepperdine University Law School.
Zacharia told Posobiec that she took the bar exam in California but did not pass, saying she was distracted by her plans to get married and move to China for her husband’s job around the same time. She said she “didn’t think much” about the results and that she did not need to pass the exam to do her job in China.
Zacharia also said she never described herself as a “lawyer” and said there was “a lot of misinformation around me calling myself a lawyer.” She said she consulted several experts.
“I was very careful about how I executed this. I never felt like I was a lawyer,” Zacharia said.
Earlier this week, as President Trump left for a trip to Alaska, when asked by reporters where she passed the bar exam, Zacharia responded, “I went to China,” sowing confusion about her law training.
A White House official said Zacharia earned his juris doctor at Pepperdine, which the university confirmed to CBS News. The White House official said Zacharia later moved to China with her husband to work at a U.S. private equity firm, while she worked on international transactions law.
Zacharia told CBS News in a statement Thursday that she “practices international transactions law, with all appropriate qualifications,” although it was unclear what qualifications she meant. Only Chinese nationals can take the bar exam in China.
On Fox News in April, Zacharia said she “lived in Beijing as a corporate lawyer for three years.”
Zacharia’s Instagram bio also states that she is a lawyer. On Truth Social, Mr. Trump called her “a distinguished graduate of Pepperdine University and Pepperdine Caruso Law School, an attorney.”
Screenshot of Katie Zacharia’s personal Instagram 
But whether it’s true that she can say she’s a lawyer or barrister is controversial — and it’s a question Zacharia has thought about. She told the New York Times that as she began appearing on cable news, she talked with Pepperdine’s president about how she could describe herself. The Times said: “She said she had been warned not to use the words ‘lawyer’ or ‘squire’, but that ‘lawyer’ was OK.”
But CNN reported Thursday that Zacharia had shared at least 15 social media posts identifying herself as “attorney” over the past two years.
The White House said Zacharia was “uniquely qualified” for the role of White House press secretary.
“Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement to CBS News. “She is uniquely qualified and smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his administration have done, and she will do an incredible job as press secretary.”
On Wednesday, the Campaign for Accountability, a liberal nonprofit watchdog, filed a complaint with the State Bar of California, questioning whether she violated California law by representing herself as a lawyer without having passed the bar. She lived in California with her family until she became White House press secretary.
The Campaign for Accountability pointed to Section 6126 of the California Business and Professions Code, which says: “Any person advertising or holding himself out as practicing or having the right to practice law or otherwise practice law who is not an active licensee of the State Bar, or otherwise authorized under any statute or rule of court to practice law in this State at the time of doing so, is guilty of a misdemeanor.” »
“Ms. Zacharia has repeatedly presented herself as a lawyer to bolster her reputation and credibility as a television legal commentator and now as a White House spokesperson, but it appears that it was all a lie,” Campaign for Accountability Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith said in a statement. “In California, calling yourself an unlicensed attorney is not a joke; it is a crime. The State Bar should investigate whether Ms. Zacharia misled the public about her credentials and hold her accountable if so.”
Cheung blasted the left-wing ethics group.
“This group that filed the ‘complaint’ is a radical left-wing organization run by raging idiots suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung posted on X. “No one takes them seriously because they are messed up lives.”
Nora Freeman Engstron, a law professor at Stanford Law School, said the language used in California’s law is not ambiguous or unclear.
“California law is very clear: You cannot hold yourself out as a lawyer unless you are licensed to practice law,” she told CBS News. “And the law not only prohibits the unauthorized practice of law. It also prohibits the unauthorized pretense of being a lawyer.”
“California law doesn’t just prohibit people from practicing law without a license,” she added. “It also prohibits them from claiming that they have the right to practice law. You don’t have to set foot in a courtroom or represent a single client to break the law.”
Gn headline
