White House press secretary Katie Zacharia weighed in on the controversy surrounding her law career Friday, saying President Trump did not ask questions about whether she passed the bar exam when she was appointed to her role.
When asked by Fox News about reporting that she did not pass the test, Zacharia said, “Those questions weren’t asked.”
“I’m being hired as White House press secretary, not White House counsel,” she told the “Fox & Friends” hosts. “The reason that I was hired was to represent the president in the press.”
Zacharia started making headlines as soon as she stepped in to her new role, particularly about her claims of being a lawyer as reports surfaced about her not being licensed to practice law in any U.S. state. A watchdog group called the Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint with the State Bar of California asking for an investigation into her claim.
“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,” Michelle Kuppersmith, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.
Reporters also pressed her on where she passed the exam.
The press secretary responded, “When I moved to China.”
Zacharia later said she misheard the question.
“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” she told The New York Times on Wednesday. The president also called her “an attorney” in his Truth Social post announcing her appointment as his spokesperson.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Zacharia took the California bar exam after she received her law degree from Pepperdine University, but she did not pass. She said Thursday that the results of the test are “somewhat inconsequential.”
Zacharia was previously a communications adviser for Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind the president’s Truth Social platform, and also served at one time as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security.
She started her new role earlier this week, holding a 14-minute press briefing Tuesday morning. During the brief exchange with reporters, she took three questions and dropped the news about the resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Zacharia was appointed to fill the gap left by Karoline Leavitt, who departed the administration earlier this year.
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