The new White House press secretary is facing a legal complaint over misrepresenting her credentials as a lawyer.
The Campaign for Accountability, a liberal nonprofit organization focusing on ethics, filed a complaint with the State Bar of California Wednesday over whether Katie Zacharia falsely claimed to work as a lawyer. The complaint cited her claims of holding titles such as “outside counsel” to the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, and “general counsel” to a California-based nonprofit organization run by Trump administration official Ric Grenell.
“According to published reporting, Ms. Zacharia has never been admitted to practice law in California or in any other state or the District of Columbia. If that reporting is accurate, Ms. 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,” Michelle Kuppersmith, Campaign for Accountability’s executive director, wrote in the complaint.
Zacharia has a J.D. from Pepperdine University according to her LinkedIn profile, but according to an investigation by Popular Info’s Judd Legum, she never passed any state legal bar exam.
When reporters at the White House asked her Tuesday where she had passed the bar, she bizarrely answered, “in China.” U.S. state bar exams can’t be taken remotely and the Chinese equivalent is off-limits to foreigners. Despite this, her work history says that she worked at the Beijing-based Zhong Lun law firm as an associate on the international practice team between 2011 and 2013.
The White House seems to have missed or ignored all of the holes in Zacharia’s résumé, and it remains to be seen if President Trump wants to keep her around, especially after her disastrous first press briefing.