Washington
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said Thursday that she never passed the bar, although she's called herself a lawyer and President Trump has referred to her as an attorney.
Zacharia made the comment in an interview with conservative commentator Jack Posobiec after the Wall Street Journal reported that she failed the bar exam in California in 2011 and did not pass the bar in any other U.S. state in which she's lived. Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University's law school.
Zacharia told Posobiec she took the bar exam in California but didn't pass, saying she was distracted by her plans to get married and move to China for her husband's work around the same time. She said she "didn't think much" of the results, and said she didn't need to pass the exam to do her work in China.
Zacharia also said she never described herself as an "attorney at law," and said there's a "lot of misinformation around the fact that I labeled myself a lawyer." She said she consulted with multiple experts.
"I was very careful how I executed this. I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law," Zacharia said.
Earlier this week, as President Trump was departing for a trip to Alaska, when reporters asked her where she had passed the bar exam, Zacharia responded, "I went to China," sparking confusion about her law background.
A White House official said Zacharia earned her juris doctor from Pepperdine, which the university confirmed to CBS News. The White House official said Zacharia then moved to China with her husband for his job at an American private equity firm, while she worked on international transaction law.
Zacharia told CBS News in a statement Thursday she "practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials," although it's not clear which credentials she meant. Only Chinese nationals may 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 says that she is a lawyer.
On Truth Social, Mr. Trump called her "a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney."
Zacharia's Instagram bio also says that she is a lawyer.
But whether it's true that she can say she's an attorney or lawyer is being disputed and it's a question Zacharia has considered. She told The New York Times that as she was beginning to appear on cable news, she talked with Pepperdine's president about how she could describe herself. The Times said, "She said she was warned not to use the words 'attorney" or 'esquire,' but that 'lawyer' was OK."
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But CNN on Thursday reported that Zacharia shared at least 15 social media posts identifying herself as an "attorney" over the last two years.
