The new White House press secretary failed the bar exam. She shared posts calling her an attorney anyway

Questions Raised Over Katie Zacharia’s Use of Legal Titles Before White House Role

Activelifezero.com – Katie Zacharia, newly named as White House press secretary, is facing scrutiny over social media posts and media appearances in which she was described as an attorney despite not passing the California bar exam.

Over a period spanning April 2025 through September 2026, Zacharia shared at least 15 posts from her X and Truth Social accounts that used the title “attorney.” The posts included television headlines and clips that identified her that way, and she amplified them to her own followers. One of the posts is no longer visible on X, while several similar items remained available on Truth Social.

The issue has drawn attention because Zacharia has publicly said she was advised that she could call herself a lawyer after earning a law degree, but not an attorney or “esquire.” She graduated from Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in 2011 and later confirmed that she did not pass the California bar exam that year. She said she did not sit for it again.

Advice on describing her background

In interviews, Zacharia said she sought guidance from Pepperdine’s president and other people before appearing as a television commentator. She said the advice distinguished between “lawyer,” a term she believed she could use because she holds a Juris Doctor degree, and “attorney,” which she said she was told to avoid.

“They said absolutely across the board, you can call yourself a lawyer, you have a JD, and, to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law, which gives you the ability to analyze it, not necessarily give advice,” Zacharia said during an interview with Real America’s Voice.

She also defended her handling of the matter in a Fox News appearance, characterizing the disputed social media activity as reposts rather than personal claims of professional licensure.

“I think they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said that those not endorsing the title, they were retweets of a title that had been given,” Zacharia said Thursday night.

A person familiar with her thinking similarly said that reposting the material was not meant as an endorsement of the attorney designation. Yet the repeated sharing has raised questions about whether the distinction Zacharia described was consistently maintained in public.

Posts and appearances

On April 26, 2025, Zacharia posted an X link to a Fox News headline that called her an attorney in connection with a discussion about citizenship documentation in U.S. elections. That post was later deleted. On the same day, she shared the headline six times on Truth Social, and she posted it again on May 14.

She promoted another Fox News headline on August 23, 2025, in a segment involving criticism of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. That item also referred to Zacharia as an attorney.

Her social-media history included six reposts from One America News that identified her as “Attorney.” Two came on May 14, 2026, two more were shared June 4, another was posted June 17, and two appeared September 11.

The legal label also surfaced in spoken appearances. During an early October episode of “The Greg Kelly Show,” Zacharia referred to herself as a lawyer while discussing the confirmation process for federal attorney nominees. In a Christian podcast interview from October 2023, she said she had attended Pepperdine’s law school before moving to Beijing, where she said she worked in the legal field for roughly two to two-and-a-half years.

California licensing rules

California requires people practicing law in the state to pass the bar examination. State law also makes it a misdemeanor to falsely present oneself as a lawyer. The California bar association said it had no record showing that Zacharia was licensed to practice in the state, while noting that confidentiality rules prevented it from discussing whether an individual took the exam.

Zacharia has maintained that she did not present herself as a licensed attorney.

“The truth is, is I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law,” she said in the Real America’s Voice interview.

Her explanation centers on the difference between academic credentials, legal work experience and a professional license. A Juris Doctor degree reflects completion of law school, while bar admission is the separate credential that authorizes a person to practice law in a particular jurisdiction. The distinction can be significant for public figures whose titles appear in television graphics, headlines and political messaging.

Work in Beijing and the bar exam

Zacharia said that after law school she moved to Beijing to join her husband, following a long-distance relationship. She told Real America’s Voice that the bar exam outcome seemed less important at the time because it would not affect her ability to work in China.

“I didn’t really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on,” she said.

She said she worked in the international practice division of Zhong Lun Law firm, where she was one of four associates working under a senior partner on multi-million-dollar matters. Her comments describe experience in transactional and international legal work, rather than licensed legal practice in California.

As Zacharia assumes one of the administration’s most visible communications positions, the questions surrounding her past use of legal titles are likely to remain relevant. The dispute is not only about terminology: it concerns how professional qualifications are communicated to an audience that may reasonably interpret “attorney” as meaning a person licensed to practice law.