White House Defends Press Secretary Zacharia After Bar Exam Report

Updated 03:36 UTC. Katie Zacharia has confirmed her departure in her own words. In a post on X on Friday night she praised President Donald Trump and said it was an honor to work for him, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal reported. She did not say in the post whether she had resigned or been fired, Newsmax reported. A person familiar with the plans told the Journal she will move to a new role that will be announced later, and White House communications director Steven Cheung told CNN she will continue to support the president as she moves to a new role. CNN reported advisers watched her first briefing with concern and that Trump had told her earlier in the week that she had performed well. Her five days in the job are the shortest tenure for a White House press secretary, USA Today reported. No successor has been named.

Updated 18:21 UTC. Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary, a White House official said on Friday, minutes after President Donald Trump told reporters he had told her to reconsider the job. Reuters reported the official said she was let go from the role. Fox News, citing a senior administration official, reported she was transitioning out of the role. USA Today, citing four sources including a senior White House official, reported she was fired after five days in the job. The New York Times, cited by People, also reported her time in the role was over. Zacharia started the job on Monday and held her first briefing on Tuesday. No successor was named in the reports, and Zacharia and the White House had not given a fuller statement when the departure was reported.

Updated 17:35 UTC. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he told press secretary Katie Zacharia that morning she should reconsider the job, and that the role of White House spokesperson may not be for her. Trump told reporters at the White House that he was not firing her, that they would speak when he returned to Washington, and that the decision was hers. He said Zacharia had been loyal to him, that the media had treated her harshly, and that he did not think she would be happy in the job. The remarks came one week after Trump named Zacharia on October 9, and days after her first briefing on October 13. On Thursday night, on the Hannity program, she said she did not pass the bar exam and never held a law licence in the United States, the issue at the centre of the original story below. Trump spoke before leaving the White House for a rally in Georgia. Zacharia has not announced a decision.

The White House is standing behind its new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, after the Wall Street Journal reported that she took the California bar exam after law school and did not pass it, and after a watchdog group asked the State Bar of California to investigate how she has described herself.

President Donald Trump announced Zacharia, 42, as press secretary on October 9 and described her as an attorney. She graduated from Pepperdine University law school in California in 2011, the university confirmed. A law degree is not a licence to practise law in the United States. Lawyers must pass a state bar exam and be admitted before they can practise.

The answer that started it

At her first appearance alongside the president on Tuesday, a reporter asked Zacharia in which state she had passed the bar exam. She answered: "When I moved to China."

On Wednesday evening she told the New York Times she had misheard the question over the noise of Marine One and thought she was being asked where she was after law school. She also told the Times that when she began appearing on cable news, the president of Pepperdine advised her she could call herself a lawyer, but not an attorney.

The Journal, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter, reported she sat for the California exam around the time she was planning a wedding and a move to China with her future husband, and did not pass. CNN said it found no evidence that she has passed the bar in the states where she has lived and worked since graduating.

Work in Beijing

Zacharia moved to Beijing in the summer of 2011. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as an associate on the international practice team at Zhong Lun Law Firm from 2011 to 2013. Only Chinese citizens can be licensed to practise law in China, so foreign staff at Chinese firms advise on cross border work rather than practise Chinese law.

In a statement this week, Zacharia said: "I practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials." The statement did not name a state where she is admitted.

The complaint and the defence

On Wednesday, the watchdog group Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint with the State Bar of California. It asked the bar to investigate whether Zacharia repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practise law without a licence, which California law treats as a crime.

White House communications director Steven Cheung defended her in a statement, calling her a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team and "uniquely qualified and whip smart." A White House official said she was not hired to do legal work for the president.

The dispute does not change her legal right to hold the job. No law requires a press secretary to be a lawyer. The fight is over accuracy: whether a senior official described a credential she does not hold, weeks before midterm elections in which trust in official statements is itself on the ballot.