White House spokesperson Katie Zacharia’s law career faces scrutiny

Katie Zacharia has repeatedly claimed to beryllium a lawyer, but critics question if she passed the barroom exam to beryllium licensed.

Katie Zacharia, the caller White House property caput nether United States President Donald Trump, has drawn expanding disapproval implicit claims astir her nonrecreational background.

On Wednesday, a nationalist accountability nonprofit filed a ailment with the State Bar of California implicit Zacharia’s repeated claims that she was a lawyer.

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If made falsely, specified a assertion is simply a transgression successful the state. According to Zacharia’s LinkedIn profile, she received a grade from the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law successful 2011, but critics person questioned whether she received a licence to practise law, arsenic she has suggested.

“Ms. Zacharia has represented herself arsenic a lawyer repeatedly to buttress her estimation and credibility arsenic a tv ineligible commentator and present arsenic the White House spokesperson,” Michelle Kuppersmith, the caput of the Washington, DC-based Campaign for Accountability, said successful a statement. “Yet it seems it was each a lie.”

Her organisation filed the ailment with California’s barroom office, a regulatory bureau that oversees the licensing of lawyers.

“In California, calling yourself a lawyer without a licence isn’t puffery; it’s a crime,” Kuppersmith said.

“The State Bar should analyse whether Ms. Zacharia has misled the nationalist astir her credentials and clasp her accountable if she has.”

Zacharia, a commentator who has appeared often connected Fox News and Newsmax, began her word arsenic White House property caput connected Tuesday.

In a quality briefing that day, she seemed to falter and talk haltingly, sometimes having to repetition herself.

Her quality was brief, lasting nether 15 minutes. She spent overmuch of her clip astatine the podium thanking Trump for the accidental and speechmaking from a prepared statement.

“I person wanted to enactment for him for a precise agelong time,” Zacharia said.

Later, she joined Trump extracurricular the White House to talk further with reporters. When asked wherever she had passed the barroom exam, Zacharia replied, “When I moved to China.”

The effect was an evident notation to a three-year stint successful which she claims she worked astatine a instrumentality steadfast successful Beijing.

A biography connected the website for the pro-Trump women’s organisation Trumpettes USA Inc says she “served arsenic extracurricular counsel” for the World Bank and International Finance Corporation portion successful Beijing.

Her LinkedIn profile, meanwhile, indicates Zacharia served arsenic an subordinate astatine the Zhong Lun Law Firm successful Beijing from 2011 to 2013. More recently, from 2024 to 2025, it lists her arsenic wide counsel for Fix California, a elector rights radical started by a Trump medication official.

On her Instagram profile, Zacharia describes herself arsenic a “Wife, Mom, & Lawyer”.

But Zacharia’s assertion that she passed the barroom successful China has fuelled media scrutiny. China’s equivalent of the barroom exam, the notoriously hard National Unified Legal Professional Qualification Examination, tin lone beryllium taken by Chinese citizens.

China has, connected uncommon occasion, allowed foreigners to practise instrumentality successful the state if they person respective years of acquisition successful their location countries first.

But that does not look to beryllium the lawsuit for Zacharia. According to media reports, Zacharia has not been recovered to beryllium licensed arsenic a lawyer successful immoderate authorities successful the US.

In a connection to The Associated Press, Zacharia responded to the scrutiny by saying, “I signifier planetary transaction law, with each the due credentials.”

Since Trump’s instrumentality to bureau for a 2nd term, Zacharia has spent respective months arsenic a communications advisor astatine the Department of Homeland Security.

Since June, she has besides worked arsenic the elder communications advisor astatine the Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the Truth Social platform.