Katie Zacharia ‘Let Go’ as White House Press Secretary After Bar Exam Row
White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia was “let go” from the role on Friday, an official said, days after she admitted she had failed the bar exam and her legal credentials came under public scrutiny.
US President Donald Trump said earlier that he had advised her to reconsider the job. Fox News, citing a White House official, later reported that Zacharia was “transitioning” out of the press secretary role. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The exit ends one of the shortest tenures in the history of the job. Trump had appointed Zacharia only last week, and she held her first press briefing on Tuesday.
What led to the Katie Zacharia White House exit
The trouble began when Zacharia gave an inconclusive answer about where she had passed the bar exam, despite describing herself as a lawyer on television and social media and listing herself as general counsel of a California-based conservative non-profit.
On Thursday she acknowledged the truth. The 41-year-old graduated from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, but a degree alone does not qualify someone to practise law in the United States. Asked on Fox News whether she had taken the bar exam but not passed it, she answered yes.
She told the conservative outlet Real America’s Voice she had registered for the exam but was “distracted and overwhelmed” by plans to move to China with her husband, adding the results were inconsequential because she would not need the bar there. Foreign nationals cannot sit China’s bar exam, though they can perform certain legal work at Chinese firms.
Asked whether she had ever retaken it, she said she had not: “I had four kids in six years. It was never my intent to go into the practice of law.”
The ‘lawyer’ label and the ethics complaint
Zacharia said “many people in the field” had assured her she could call herself a lawyer, given her degree and business-law experience at a Beijing firm. She said she could provide legal analysis, though not legal advice.
The Campaign for Accountability, a political ethics group, called on Wednesday for the California Bar Association to investigate, saying that in California, calling yourself a lawyer without a licence is not puffery but a crime. Her first briefing on Tuesday had already raised eyebrows: it was unusually short, with questions from only three journalists.
A one-week tenure in a high-turnover role
Zacharia succeeded Karoline Leavitt, a loyal Trump supporter and often combative press secretary, who stepped down in August to care for her young children. Trump then turned to Zacharia, but the appointment unravelled within days as the bar exam story dominated coverage of her.
The rapid rise and fall continues a pattern of churn in White House communications under Trump. The press secretary’s podium is among the most visible jobs in American politics, and scrutiny of the person behind it is immediate and intense.
Feature Pakistan has followed the story from the start, reporting first on questions over Zacharia’s legal credentials, then on her admission that she failed the bar exam, and on the mounting scrutiny of her bar exam record.
What happens next
Trump said he had spoken to Zacharia honestly about the difficulty of the role: “I think you’re better off being happy, and I’m not sure you can ever be happy in this stuff.”
No successor has been named, and the White House will need to fill the podium quickly, with Trump ruling out a US attack on Iran before the November midterms and a packed autumn agenda ahead.
The original report appeared in Dawn.
Why was Katie Zacharia let go as White House press secretary?
An official said she was “let go” after President Trump advised her to reconsider the job, following days of scrutiny over her admission that she failed the bar exam despite describing herself as a lawyer.
Did Katie Zacharia pass the bar exam?
No. She acknowledged on Fox News that she took the bar exam but did not pass it, and said she never retook it because she did not intend to practise law.
Who was White House press secretary before Katie Zacharia?
Karoline Leavitt held the role before stepping down in August to care for her young children. Trump appointed Zacharia the following week.
