The new White House secretary is facing questions about whether she is or isn't a lawyer, and she had a chance to clear things up Tuesday when asked in which state she had passed the bar exam. 'When I moved to China," she responded. The answer left critics perplexed, but Zacharia tells the New York Times it was a misunderstanding. "I assumed the question was, 'Where were you after law school?'" she said. "That's all I could hear over the sound of Marine One."
In regard to the original question: Zacharia has a law degree from Pepperdine University but does not appear to have passed the bar in any state. The Wall Street Journal reports that she sat for the exam in California but didn't pass. Semantics are at play: Zacharia says she consulted with Pepperdine years ago and was told she could call herself a lawyer but not an attorney, given that she hadn't passed the bar. She did indeed work for a Chinese law firm while living in that country, but it was more as an international consultant, not as a practicing lawyer, according to both newspapers.
Much of the controversy revolves around the question of whether Zacharia has falsely presented herself in her public appearances, as a watchdog group claims. President Trump referred to her as an "attorney" in introducing her to the nation, and the Journal spied at least one chryon at Fox News, where she appeared as a commentator, calling her an attorney. Amid all this, the Journal also spoke to a law professor at Pepperdine who remembers her as "a good law student and a genuinely good person," adding that many legal scholars aren't technically attorneys.
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