President Donald Trump has repeatedly called his new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, “an attorney.” On the South Lawn Tuesday, before he left for a rally in Wasilla, Alaska, a reporter pressed her on which state she passed the bar in.
Trump turned to her and asked the same thing. Her answer: “When I moved to China.”
That names no state, no country and no licensing body. Zacharia, formerly Katie Black, earned her J.D. from Pepperdine’s Caruso Law in 2011, and the school lists her on its Dean’s Council. A law degree is not a bar admission.
Independent journalist Judd Legum searched attorney directories in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., and found no record she was ever admitted. In the states where she has lived and worked, CNN turned up no evidence that she passed the bar. The Daily Beast and The Independent both checked California records, including under her maiden name, and came up empty.
The China answer doesn’t resolve it either. Chinese rules allow only PRC nationals to sit the national legal profession exam, so a foreigner cannot qualify as a lawyer there. Zacharia lived in Beijing from 2011 to 2013, working as an associate at the firm Zhong Lun.
She has leaned on the credential for over a year. She said “I’m a lawyer” on the Greg Kelly Show in October, “as a lawyer” on CNN in February, and told Politico she “practiced international transactional law, with all the appropriate credentials,” without naming any. By Legum’s count, Fox News has labeled her a lawyer on screen in at least 18 appearances dating back to March 2025.
In California, it’s a misdemeanor to hold yourself out as entitled to practice law without being an active State Bar licensee. No public U.S. bar listing for Zacharia has been produced. When Legum asked the White House about it, he was told to “Refer you to the President’s TRUTH on Katie,” the post that called her an attorney in the first place.
