Amid questions about her legal credentials, White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said in an interview Thursday that she did not pass the bar exam.
In an interview on Fox News, host Sean Hannity asked: “You went to Pepperdine law school but you did not pass the bar exam, correct?”
“Correct,” Zacharia replied.
Asked if she ever took the bar exam for a second or even a third time, she said she did not.
Earlier, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told ABC News that Zacharia did not pass the bar exam in the United States.
Zacharia, who held her first White House press briefing earlier this week, has described herself as a lawyer and President Donald Trump called her “an attorney” in a social media post last week announcing her role in his administration.
There has been scrutiny over whether she passed the bar after Popular Information reported earlier this week that there was no evidence she was licensed to practice law. There was also a Wall Street Journal report saying that Zacharia sat for the bar in 2011 but did not pass.
In an earlier interview Thursday with Real America’s Voice, Zacharia clarified that she did take the bar exam after obtaining her law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011 — but stopped short of explicitly stating whether she passed the exam. She said the results of the bar exam were “somewhat inconsequential” because she knew she would be moving to China afterward where she worked in international transaction law.
“I’ll take the bar and see what happens,” Zacharia said of her mindset at the time. “The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn’t need the bar in China, and — and we left shortly thereafter. And after moving to China, I think– I didn’t — I didn’t really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on, and I was offered a job at a — in an international practice division of a — of a Chinese law firm.”
Zacharia took the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine Caruso School of Law but did not pass, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The White House did not previously respond to questions to the press secretary’s office about whether Zacharia passed the bar exam.
Zacharia noted that she consulted with people in the legal field and asked whether she could title herself as a lawyer, providing legal analysis, rather than an attorney at law providing legal advice.
“I consulted, for a very long time, many people in the field: ‘Is it OK and acceptable if I label myself “lawyer,” not “attorney at law,” not “Katie Zacharia, Esquire,” but “lawyer,” and provide legal analysis, not legal advice?,’ And they said ‘absolutely, absolutely,’ across the board. ‘You can call yourself a lawyer, you have a JD, and to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law, which gives you the ability to analyze it, not necessarily give advice,'” Zacharia told Real America’s Voice.
Zacharia added that she is “very careful” how she refers to herself, saying she never presented herself as a practicing attorney.
“I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law,” Zacharia said.
Asked about the reports of Zacharia’s credentials, the White House would not directly respond, providing a statement from Zacharia saying she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.”
A White House official added that Zacharia has “her JD from Pepperdine.”
“Katie moved to China with her husband after graduating because of his job at an American private equity firm while she worked on international transaction law,” the White House official added.
Earlier this week, during a White House departure with Trump, Zacharia was asked by a reporter in which state she passed the bar exam. Trump waved Zacharia over to respond herself to the question, to which she responded she “moved to China.” When pressed again, she repeated to reporters that she “moved to China.”
Zacharia later clarified her response in a phone interview with the New York Times, claiming she couldn’t hear the reporter’s question.
“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?,'” Zacharia told the New York Times.
“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” Zacharia added. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president, kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”
Asked Thursday whether she plans to weigh in on legal matters while serving as press secretary, Zacharia said she did not.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
