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The new White House press secretary apparently tried to do damage control on the confusion surrounding her legal credentials — and didn’t succeed.
Katie Zacharia made a disastrous debut behind the briefing room podium Tuesday and later left a gaggle of reporters outside the White House befuddled when they tried to ask her where she had passed the bar.
“When I moved to China,” she answered while flanked by President Donald Trump as the roar from Marine One nearly drowned out the exchange.
Trump has described Zacharia as an attorney, and she lists one of her jobs on LinkedIn as general counsel to Fix California, an “election integrity” group founded by former Trump administration diplomat Ric Grenell.
Zacharia tried to clean up the mess by telling Shawn McCreesh of The New York Times she simply did not hear the questions — and guessed at what she was actually being asked:
On Wednesday evening, she told The New York Times that this whole mishegas over “lawyer,” “attorney,” and “China,” has been one big misunderstanding.
“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” she said, taking a quick phone call on the tarmac in Arizona, where the president was holding a midterm rally.
“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she said. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president, kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”
It was only her second day on the job, she pointed out.
It has since emerged that the 41-year-old California mother of four, who graduated from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, sat for the bar exam but didn’t pass.
She told The Times she had previously consulted with Pepperdine’s president “as to how she should identify herself,” before she began her cable news appearances, and “was warned not to use the words “attorney” or “esquire,” but [told] that “lawyer” was OK.”
Use of the term “general counsel” is not OK, however, according to Erwin Chemerinsky, who heads the law school at the University of California at Berkeley.
“You can’t be a general counsel to a company in the United States unless you’re admitted to the bar to practice law,” Chemerinsky told The Times. “A general counsel implies that you’re practicing law, giving legal advice to the company. You can’t practice law without a license.”
Zacharia lists herself as an associate at Zhong Lun Law Firm in China, a position a former partner at the firm said equates to a paid internship, according to the report.
“They are not practicing Chinese law at any time,” Gary Gao told The Times, noting American associates at Chinese firms are typically there to help the Chinese staff with language or understanding business culture.
The post WH Press Secretary Katie Zacharia Tries — and Fails — to Explain Away ‘China’ Law Credentials Question to NYT first appeared on Mediaite.
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