Katie Zacharia has had a tough first week at work.
Her first briefing as the new White House press secretary lasted about 14 minutes, and she took three questions. Then came scrutiny over her legal career.
During a Thursday appearance on “Hannity” on Fox News — known to be friendly territory for the Trump administration — Zacharia said she had done her “very best” in her debut and addressed the criticism over her legal career.
“What I feel is I really stepped up to the plate to do the press conference, Sean, with very little prep time,” Zacharia told host Sean Hannity.
Zacharia said she had been on the job for “less than maybe eight hours” and only received briefing materials on Tuesday morning — the day of the press conference.
She also responded to criticism that she had taken questions only from conservative outlets, saying she had called on the Daily Mail, which “is not known to be a conservative outlet or friendly to conservatives.”
Zacharia said she “probably should have stepped aside” after introducing herself, rather than take questions.
Hannity then asked Zacharia about her background in law.
She confirmed that she had taken the bar exam but had not passed, and had not retaken it.
Zacharia said she graduated from Pepperdine the same week she got married, and planned to move to China. However, she had already registered for the exam.
“The results of the bar were inconsequential, and I sat for it because I didn’t want to have a withdrawal status,” she said.
In China, she said she got a job in the “international practice of a Chinese law firm” where she “was doing cross-country border transactions and multimillion dollar shareholder agreements.”
Zacharia also confirmed that she consulted with legal professionals over whether she could call herself a lawyer because she had a “valid Juris Doctor from a good law school.”
Hannity then brought up a Thursday CNN report about how she had shared several social media posts in which she described herself as an attorney.
“I think they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said that that’s not endorsing the title. They were retweets of a title that had been given,” Zacharia said.
Scrutiny over her legal background
Over the past week, questions have mounted over Zacharia’s legal credentials.
She graduated from Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law in 2011, but the Substack publication Popular Information reported on Tuesday that she had not been admitted to any state bar.
On Wednesday, two watchdog groups filed complaints with California’s state bar, calling on it to investigate whether Zacharia had violated state law by calling herself a lawyer.
Her work experience in China has also drawn attention to her legal credentials.
Chinese law experts told Business Insider that only Chinese nationals can take the country’s bar exam. Foreign employees at international law firms can work on some transactions without passing it, but their role is limited.
“She was never a lawyer in China. It doesn’t mean she didn’t do law-related work, but she was never a lawyer in China,” Jacques deLisle, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school who studies the Chinese legal system, told Business Insider.
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