The new US president’s press secretary, Katie Zacharia, has said she is a lawyer, but no public records indicate that she has ever practised law in the states where she has lived. On Tuesday, after her first press briefing in the new role, Zacharia was asked to say where she had passed the bar exam. She replied that she did so after moving to China, The Guardian reports.
Journalists checked the public rolls of lawyers in 38 states, the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands and did not find Zacharia listed. On Wednesday evening, the Wall Street Journal, citing a person with direct knowledge, reported that Zacharia took the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University School of Law in 2011, but did not pass.
In a brief conversation with the New York Times, she did not explain whether she had passed the bar exam or not, but told a reporter that she had consulted Pepperdine’s president about how she should describe herself on television. According to the Times, she said she was advised to avoid the words “attorney” (which effectively means a practising lawyer) and “esquire” (“a practising attorney”), but that “lawyer” was appropriate.
Trump was also asked about Zacharia’s qualifications. A reporter wanted to know where she had passed the bar exam. The president called her an attorney, turned to her and asked: “In which state?” She replied: “when I moved to China”. Zacharia told the New York Times that she misheard the question because of the noise from a helicopter and assumed she had been asked: “Where were you after law school?”
Zacharia’s law degree is genuine — Pepperdine University confirmed that she graduated from its law school. But a degree is not a licence. No documents proving that she was admitted to practise have been found, Popular Information reported.
In a later statement to the press, Zacharia said she had “practised international transactional law with all the proper qualification documents”. The White House did not say whether she has passed the bar exam anywhere at all.
Presenting oneself as a lawyer without the proper qualifications may break the law, Forbes writes.
According to the New York Times, Zacharia is a counsel at the company behind Trump’s social network, Truth Social. As press secretary, she replaced Karoline Leavitt, who resigned several months ago. Leavitt served as the US president’s press secretary after his return to the White House from January 2025 until autumn 2026. Trump called her one of the best White House press secretaries of all time.