The White House is defending its new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, as she faces scrutiny over her legal credentials.
President Donald Trump described Zacharia as an attorney when asserting her appointment last week and she has referred to herself as a lawyer.
But when she was requested on Tuesday by a reporter in which state she had handed the bar examination required to be an attorney in the US, she said standing alongside the president: “When I moved to China.”
She does not seem to be registered to the bar in any state where she has lived. White House communications director Steven Cheung said Zacharia is “uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people”.
Responding to questions about her credentials, Zacharia said in a assertion this week: “I practised international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.”
On Wednesday, a watchdog group, Campaign for Accountability, filed a grievance with the California State Bar Association.
They are looking for an investigation into whether Zacharia “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practise law without a licence to do so, conduct California law treats as a crime”.
The 42-year-old political strategist graduated from law college at Pepperdine University in California in 2011, the college confirmed.
A law degree is not a licence to practise law in the US.
The new White House press secretary informed the New York Times on Wednesday that when she first started showing on cable information, she had requested Pepperdine how she should establish herself.
She said she was suggested by the college president that she could call herself a lawyer, but not an attorney.
Zacharia took the bar examination in California after graduating from law college but did not cross, according to the Wall Street Journal. California’s bar examination is broadly regarded as one of the hardest in the US to cross.
An individual with direct information of the matter informed the outlet that Zacharia took the examination around the same time that she was planning a marriage ceremony and getting ready to transfer to China with her husband-to-be.
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