White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is facing fresh scrutiny about her dubious claims about her career background — and even her explanation for things isn’t adding up.
Zacharia, 41, has claimed on her resume that she has worked as an attorney, but there is no evidence that she has passed the bar in any U.S. state, let alone her native California, where she claims to have done legal work.
When pressed about her credentials on her second day on the job, she did not appear to name a state, instead saying she passed it “when I moved to China.”
But legal experts are sowing doubt about the fact that a fresh law school graduate could have become a licensed attorney in the communist country.
Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine Caruso Law School in 2011. Shortly thereafter, she joined her husband Tyler in China, where he had already been living in Beijing. The couple lived in China for about two years between 2011 and 2013.
While abroad, her LinkedIn also states that she worked as an associate at Zhong Lun Law Firm, an elite Chinese law firm.
She worked as a fundraising manager at Compassion for Migrant Children while in China, according to her LinkedIn. The organization describes itself as “a collaborative effort to provide a framework within which organizations, individuals, and companies can express their care for children of migrant workers.”
Mark Jia, a Georgetown Law professor who specializes in China, told independent outlet Popular Information that he was unaware of anyone like Zacharia who would have been licensed to practice law in China.
“Why would a Chinese law firm hire someone to advise on foreign law if they were not licensed to practice that law in their home countries?” Jia asked, suggesting that it was more likely that Zacharia was employed as a paralegal or another similar position, not an actual attorney.
He noted that even in the unlikely event that she was hired as a foreign legal consultant overseas, it would still not make her a licensed attorney.
“It is not accurate for her to call herself a lawyer. There is a difference between being licensed to practice law and doing legal work,” he explained. “The Chinese government does not make someone an attorney simply by allowing them to perform some legal work for a law firm. You have to be admitted as a lawyer somewhere, and I have seen no evidence that she was admitted as such anywhere.”
Bruce Green, the director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham University School of Law, put things more bluntly.
“A law school graduate is just that — a law school graduate,” he told the Washington Post.
“Someone in the U.S. who just flat-out calls themselves a lawyer, without further qualification or explanation, will mislead listeners or readers to think that they are permitted to practice law here in the U.S. — which they are not,” he said.
The White House has hardly defended Zacharia in the matter, providing a canned statement that she “worked on international transaction law” in China and “practiced international transactional law, with all the appropriate credentials.”
Still, she has said she worked as “General Counsel” for Fix California, a right-wing nonprofit organization founded by Trump ally Ric Grenell, per her LinkedIn. Her resume indicates that she was in that role for just over a year, from January 2024 to March 2025.
She has also referred to herself on her X account several times as a Fox News commentator, but Fox had previously disputed that she was employed by the conservative cable channel.
Her bio on her social media accounts also seems to fit her career exaggerations.
In September 2025, after she supposedly left Fix California, Zacharia’s bio on X read: “Fox News & Newsmax Analyst General Counsel to Fix California | Lawyer | Political Strategist | Former OPA,” according to an archive of her account.
She then dropped that legal title from her X bio in November 2025 but put it back in April 2026, according to an archive of Zacharia’s X bio on May 1, 2026, which reads: “Fox News, CNN, Newsmax, & OANN et al. Commentator | General Counsel, Fix California | Lawyer | Fmr. Department of Homeland Security Spokeswoman | Sicilian.”
