Photo: Photo by Can Hasasu/Anadolu via Getty Images
Just moments after her disastrous first press conference on Tuesday morning, new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia found herself embroiled in controversy. President Trump called his new hire an “attorney,” and Zacharia repeatedly identified herself in public as a “lawyer.” But independent journalist Judd Legum found no evidence that the new press secretary passed the bar in any state. And when White House reporters asked Zacharia where she passed the bar exam, she replied, “When I moved to China,” which makes no sense.
Later on Tuesday, Zacharia tried to shut down the story by telling multiple media outlets, “I practiced international transactional law, with all the appropriate credentials.” But that didn’t clear anything up.
Now, after working on a better response for two days, the White House has come up with a two-pronged defense. First, Zacharia misheard the question. Second, despite failing the bar exam in California, she thought it was okay to identify herself as a “lawyer” and “general counsel,” as long as she didn’t use the term “attorney.”
In a phone conversation with the New York Times on Wednesday evening, Zacharia said she misunderstood what reporters were asking:
“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” she said, taking a quick phone call on the tarmac in Arizona, where the president was holding a midterm rally.
“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she said. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president, kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”
It’s true that there was a lot of background noise during the exchange outside the White House on Tuesday. But, in the video at least, you can hear one reporter say:
“What state did she pass the bar exam in? You said she’s an attorney. Where did she pass the bar exam, which state? Could she tell us?”
After Zacharia said “China,” multiple reporters shouted, “Where did she pass the bar exam?” That doesn’t sound anything like “Where were you after law school?,” nor is the latter a commonly asked question.
President Trump on White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia: “I thought she was very good.”
Q: “You said she’s an attorney. Where did she pass the bar exam? Which state?”
Zacharia: “When I moved to China.”
Q: “Where did you pass the bar exam?” pic.twitter.com/5xiwyEsVSs
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 13, 2026
So what’s the answer to their very simple question? On Thursday morning, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Zacharia failed the California bar exam in 2011 and never retook it:
Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from law school at Pepperdine University in 2011, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, but she didn’t pass. She took the exam around the time she was planning a wedding and preparing to move to China with her future husband, the person said.
Zacharia explained the situation in more detail in an interview with right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec published on Thursday afternoon. She said she was preparing to get married and move to China when she took the bar in California, and knew the results were “somewhat inconsequential” since she wouldn’t need it to work at a Chinese firm. When she returned to work after having children, she said she consulted “many people” about whether it was okay to label herself a lawyer, and they all said yes:
Kate Zacharia tells Jack Posobiec that she was distracted when she took the bar exam because she had just gotten engaged, but it didn’t matter anyway because passing it was “inconsequential” since she “knew I wouldn’t need the bar in China.”
When asked why she never took the… pic.twitter.com/gI0BubFHbN
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 15, 2026
The Journal explained that while Zacharia definitely isn’t an “attorney,” calling herself a “lawyer” is more of a grey area:
In everyday U.S. parlance, the terms lawyer and attorney are used interchangeably, with both meaning someone who represents clients in court or advises them of their rights and obligations. The State Bar of California uses “lawyer” throughout its current rules of professional conduct.
By some definitions, the term lawyer can also mean someone who graduated law school. Still, in a number of jurisdictions, people can’t tout themselves as lawyers if they aren’t licensed to practice—generally by passing the bar exam in that location and an ethics test and undergoing a review of their moral character.
Zacharia also backed up her decision to use the title “lawyer” to the Times , saying Pepperdine’s president gave her his blessing:
During the brief phone call Wednesday, The Times did not get a chance to press her again about whether she had ever passed a bar exam. But before she had to go, she did explain that when she first began appearing on cable news, she consulted with Pepperdine’s president as to how she should identify herself. She said she was warned not to use the words “attorney” or “esquire,” but that “lawyer” was OK.
Other experts told the Times they found it misleading that Zacharia described herself as an “associate” at Zhong Lun Law Firm and “general counsel” for the nonprofit Fix California, which was founded by Trump administration official Richard Grenell. And now one watchdog group is trying to determine whether the press secretary’s use of all these titles was illegal or merely frowned upon:
On Wednesday, a watchdog group filed a complaint with the California State Bar Association, calling for an investigation into whether Ms. Zacharia “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.”
So if you’re confused about all this terminology, stay tuned. We might be getting a ruling from honest-to-God attorneys, not just a lady who was sometimes misidentified as an attorney on Fox News.
This piece was updated to include Zacharia’s interview with Posobiec.
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