Katie Zacharia still can’t explain away calling herself a lawyer when she was never licensed to practice law in any state. Conover Kennard caught her trying to blame the noise from Marine One for falsely telling the world that she passed the bar in China.
So, what’s a Trump press secretary to do when she’s an utter disaster right out of the starting gate? Run to a friendly media outlet for some MAGA rehab. Zacharia’s choice was Pizza Gate guy Jack Posobiec.
Zacharia claimed “it’s important to have the context” of why she called herself a lawyer despite never having passed a bar exam. Spoiler alert: the context made her look worse.
She went into a lengthy explanation about having a long-distance relationship while she was in law school with the Beijing-based man who is now her husband.
“I had already pre-registered to take the bar and I didn’t want to withdraw from that,” Zacharia said. But it was abundantly clear she never considered it a priority. She said she knew she’d be moving to China “and I was obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who had been long distance,” she said.
“We just said let’s take this time and I’ll take the bar and see what happens,” Zacharia continued. “The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China.”
Once in China, Zacharia got a job at a Chinese law firm. “There's no Chinese bar. I had enough credentials, which was my law degree, to be able to do this practice, and these were multi-million dollar shareholders agreements and transactions that were cross-border,” she added, “and there I had all the necessary requirements to do that, and I was able to do it effectively and well, and have glowing recommendations from the senior partner who oversaw my time there.”
In other words, Zacharia seems to have decided she was qualified without the credential. It’s not just a minor formality to be admitted to the bar, which usually entails passing a bar examination, before practicing law. As Judd Legum pointed out, and Zacharia ought to know, it’s a crime to skip that step.
Legum counted at least 18 appearances on Fox News in which she was identified as a lawyer, including an August 31 appearance in which she said, “[A]s a lawyer, the procedural steps are absolutely critical.”
Then there is the matter of her job as general counsel for Fix California, a non-profit. “A general counsel is an organization’s chief legal officer who represents the organization as an attorney,” Legum noted. “If she was engaged in the practice of law, which is typical work for a general counsel, without being an attorney, she would have violated state law. If she did not perform any legal work, why was she claiming to be the organization’s General Counsel?”
Legum also reported that Zacharia has said she served as “outside counsel” to the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
In her interview with Posobiec, Zacharia claimed she had consulted with “many people” to make sure it was acceptable to call herself a lawyer “and provide legal analysis, not legal advice.” She said they told her “absolutely, across the board” that it was fine. Was anyone an expert in legal ethics? A bar official? Posobiec never asked.
“To buffer that" (I think she meant “to buttress that”), Zacharia claimed the same unidentified people told her “You have international legal experience in transactional law, which gives you the ability to analyze it. … The truth is that I was very careful how I executed this.”
The truth is, it looks more and more like Zacharia decided she was above the law, just like her new boss.
Two watchdog groups have filed complaints against Zacharia with the State Bar of California, asking for an investigation into whether she violated that state’s law.
