President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary has an apparent shortfall in her resume.
The 80-year-old president introduced Katie Zacharia as “an attorney,” and she has described herself the same way on national TV over and over, but a new investigation by Popular Information’s Judd Legum found no evidence that she has ever been admitted to practice law in any state.
The journalist searched bar records in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and turned up no sign that Zacharia holds a law license. She isn’t listed with the State Bar of California, where she lives, or with the bars in Texas and D.C., where she has also worked.
But that hasn’t kept her from using the title.
“I’m a lawyer,” she said on the Greg Kelly Show earlier this month. In August she told a podcast, “a lawyer, I went to Pepperdine, Pepperdine Law.” In a February appearance on CNN, she said, “[A]s a lawyer, there’s a big difference between answering something under oath and answering something to the media.” Fox News has also labeled her a lawyer.
Zacharia does have a law degree, but a Juris Doctor alone doesn’t authorize someone to practice law. That requires admission to a state bar, which means passing a bar exam.
In California, presenting yourself as entitled to practice law without an active license is a misdemeanor under state law. Zacharia’s LinkedIn says she worked full-time from January 2024 to March 2025 as “General Counsel” for Fix California, a conservative nonprofit founded by Trump ally Ric Grenell. A general counsel is usually an organization’s top lawyer. According to archived versions of her X profile, she kept listing that title, along with “Lawyer,” as recently as July 2026.
However, there is this exchange — her answer to a reporter’s question when Trump introduced her.
Q: You said Zacharia is an attorney. Where did she pass the bar exam? What state?
ZACHARIA: When I moved to China.
The Chinese bar exam is in Chinese and is available only to Chinese citizens.
Popular Info’s Judd Legum found that, after analyzing state bar association databases from all 50 states and Washington, Zacharia never actually passed the qualifying legal exam anywhere in the country. But she couldn’t have passed the Chinese equivalent of the bar exam, either, as it’s actually forbidden for foreigners to do so.
Zacharia’s LinkedIn work history places her at Zhong Lun, an elite Chinese multinational law firm, between 2011 and 2013. She worked at the Beijing-based firm as an associate on the international practice team, months after she obtained her J.D. from Pepperdine Caruso Law. Zacharia’s LinkedIn also notes that she spoke Chinese at an “elementary proficiency.”