Updated Oct. 15, 2026, 8:22 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON – New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia never passed the bar exam and is not licensed to practice law despite long describing herself as a lawyer, she confirmed to USA TODAY.
While Zacharia said she was advised it’s acceptable to call herself a lawyer because she has a law degree, some legal experts disagreed, saying it’s inappropriate and unethical to use the term without having a law license.
Zacharia, who graduated from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, took the bar exam that year and didn’t pass, she said, before moving to China with her husband. She said she worked for a Chinese law firm’s international-practice team on multimillion-dollar shareholder agreements for investments.
“The results of the bar exam were inconsequential because I was already moving to a foreign country that didn’t require it,” Zacharia said in an interview with USA TODAY.
Zacharia did not attempt to take the bar exam a second time, yet she publicly identified herself a lawyer after returning to the United States even though she lacks the credentials to practice law in any state.
President Donald Trump announced Zacharia’s appointment on Oct. 9 in a social media post that described her as an “attorney” and noted her background as a conservative commentator on television, where she’s appeared regularly on Fox News and Newsmax. Zacharia has said she’s a lawyer in television appearances and in a previous version of her X bio.
Zacharia, 41, told the New York Times that before she began making television appearances, she consulted with Pepperdine’s president about how she could identify herself, and was told not to identify as an attorney or use “esquire” but that she could call herself a lawyer.
She told USA TODAY she also consulted with other attorneys and legal professionals who agreed she could describe herself as a lawyer because she has a law degree, noting that she was providing legal analysis on television, not advice.
Zacharia’s LinkedIn bio says she also worked as general counsel for the conservative group Fix California from 2024 to 2025. Despite the title, the job was a senior advisory position that did not involve developing legal strategies or giving advice, according to a source familiar with her background.
After the initial publication of this story, Zacharia appeared on Real America’s Voice, a conservative YouTube channel, explaining in an interview that she didn’t want to withdraw from taking the California bar exam despite her plans to move to China to begin her marriage with her then-boyfriend Tyler Zacharia, who already worked and lived there.
Zacharia said she was “obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed” when she took the bar exam out of excitement about her wedding plans after the couple had maintained a long-distance relationship for more than a year.
“After moving to China, I didn’t really think much of the bar results or consider that something I needed to focus on,” Zacharia said, adding that she was hired as an associate at Zhong Lun Law firm. “There’s no Chinese bar. I had enough credentials, which was my law degree, to be able to do this practice.”
While having a law license isn’t a requirement for her work as press secretary, Zacharia has faced questions about whether she misrepresented herself and potentially violated the law.
“In my professional opinion, it is unequivocally inappropriate and unethical to self-identify as a lawyer or to hold yourself out to others as a lawyer when you are not licensed to practice law,” said Marsha Griggs, a law professor at St. Louis University, adding: “The terms lawyer and attorney are interchangeable, and both require licensure through a passing score on a bar examination and a character and fitness approval by the state board of bar examiners.”
Mark Jia, a law professor at Georgetown Law School who specializes in transnational law, said he’s “never in my life” heard of a distinction between lawyer and attorney.
“To my mind, lawyer and attorney mean the same thing: someone who is licensed to practice law,” Jia said.
“It is not appropriate for someone to call herself a lawyer if she has never been licensed to practice law,” Jia added. “To be clear, graduating from law school is an impressive achievement. But having a law degree is not the same thing as being a lawyer. In the United States, the ordinary professional meaning of lawyer is one who is admitted to practice in at least one jurisdiction.”
Campaign for Accountability, a watchdog group, filed a complaint against Zacharia with the State Bar of California on Oct. 14 calling for an investigation into whether she broke California law “by repeatedly holding herself out as a lawyer.” The complaint also asks the California Bar to determine whether Zacharia’s work for Fix California violated the law.
“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,” Campaign for Accountability Executive Director Michelle Kuppersmith said in a statement. “In California, calling yourself a lawyer without a license isn’t puffery; it’s a crime.”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung responded to the complaint in a social media post slamming Campaign for Accountability.
“This group that filed the ‘complaint’ is a radical leftist-organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung said. “Nobody takes them seriously because they are deranged low lifes.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Zacharia failed the California bar exam and does not have a law license.
Zacharia started the press secretary job this week, which included a rocky first White House press briefing with reporters that was widely mocked by Trump’s critics.
The briefing lasted just 14 minutes, with most of it consisting of prepared remarks read from a binder. She answered only three questions, appearing uncomfortable at times. She was unable to answer a follow-up question on Ukraine and committed a verbal blunder, referring to the president when she meant to say her husband.
In her appearance on Real America’s Voice, Zacharia described a whirlwind few days before holding the Oct. 13 press briefing. She said Trump offered her the job by phone on Oct. 7 while she was with her five-year-old son at a pumpkin patch in California. She flew cross country to Washington D.C. the next day and accepted the position last Friday.
She then flew back to California for the weekend before returning to Washington to begin her first day as press secretary on Oct. 12. She said she didn’t receive any White House briefing materials until the night before her debut.
“I woke up at three in the morning to prepare with what I had, but they weren’t finalized until about 8 a.m.” she said.
Less than an hour later, she walked into the briefing room to address reporters for the first time.
Questions about Zacharia’s legal background added to the scrutiny. She was quizzed about her credentials Oct. 13 during her first appearance with Trump shortly after her debut briefing.
Asked Oct. 13 as she departed the White House with Trump about where she passed the bar exam, Zacharia appeared to say “when I moved to China.” She later told the New York Times that she had trouble hearing the question over the sound of Marine One, the presidential helicopter.
“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” Zacharia said.
Trump and White House officials have publicly rallied behind Zacharia amid her bumpy start. Trump praised Zacharia as he departed the White House on Oct. 13 on a trip to Alaska.
“I thought she was very good,” he said.
Cheung, in a statement, called Zacharia “a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team.”
“She is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary,” Cheung said.
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