Trump’s Press Secretary Drops Wild Excuse for First Week Fiasco

Kevin Lamarque / REUTERS Donald Trump’s new press secretary Katie Zacharia has blamed Marine One’s loud noise for her bizarre answer to whether or not she has passed the bar exam, which she has not.

Katie Zacharia, 41, has long described herself as a lawyer.

The 80-year-old president referred to her as “an attorney” in a Truth Social post last week, trumpeting her as a “Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law.” The problem, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, is that Zacharia actually failed the bar exam after graduating from the Christian college in California in 2011.

She does not appear to be licensed to practice law anywhere else in the United States.

Reporters grilled her on the topic after her disastrous first briefing on Tuesday, which lasted all of 14 minutes and 12 seconds.

A journalist asked where she had passed the bar as the president took questions next to the White House’s helipad later that afternoon.

She replied: “When I moved to China.” Zacharia’s attempted to clear things up in comments to the New York Times on Wednesday evening.

“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school’,” she told the newspaper.

“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she went on.

“And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president, kept me from moving closer to hear the question.” She then explained that after failing to pass the bar, she asked the president of Pepperdine University what she should call herself.

She told the Times that they warned her off calling herself an “attorney” or using the word “esquire,” but assured her that “lawyer” shouldn’t be a problem.

In ordinary usage, calling someone a “lawyer” implies they’re qualified and licensed to practice law in at least one jurisdiction.

The American Bar Association explicitly uses that definition, writing that it means “a licensed professional who advises and represents others in legal matters,” interchangeable with the words “attorney” and “counsel.” The dictionary offers a broader interpretation.

Merriam-Webster describes it as “one whose profession is to conduct lawsuits for clients or to advise as to legal rights and obligations in other matters.” That could arguably include paralegals, regulatory advisers, consumer rights advisers, trade union representatives, accountants, data protection officers, even patent agents.