White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is playing defense to explain her legal background with multiple appearances on Fox News, during which hosts grilled her on her resume and first press briefing.
Zacharia has come under fire in recent days over her legal credentials, as she refers to herself as a lawyer despite not having passed the bar exam. The new press secretary has also faced questioning over her first White House press briefing, in which she answered three questions, stumbled over a few answers, and mistakenly called her husband her “president.”
“What I feel is I really stepped up and to the plate to do the press conference, Sean, with very little prep time,” Zacharia told Sean Hannity on Fox News’s Hannity on Thursday night. “I received briefing materials in the morning of Tuesday, and I went to deliver all of the great results that President Trump is delivering for the American people, that are not often spread in the national media.”
Zacharia explained that she flew back and forth from California to Washington D.C., multiple times between receiving her job offer on Wednesday, Oct. 7, and delivering her first press briefing on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
“Given the fact that I’d been on the job less than maybe eight hours and had a briefing book in the morning, I feel like I did my very best,” she said.
Hannity then pressed Zacharia on her legal credentials, asking if she ever took the bar exam more than once following her failure the first time. Zacharia denied taking the exam more than once, explaining that she sat for the exam in California following her graduation from Pepperdine Law School, when she already knew she was moving to China.
“I had already pre-registered for the bar exam, and basically during the summer, I knew I would be living in China, and the results of the bar were inconsequential, and I sat for it because I didn’t want to have a withdraw status,” Zacharia said. “And then I moved over to China, where I did get a job in an international practice of a Chinese law firm.”
Zacharia has explained several times throughout the week that several “attorneys and legal professionals” she consulted confirmed that she could call herself a lawyer rather than an attorney, given her status as a holder of a valid Juris Doctor degree and legal field experience. She said this allows her to provide legal analysis in the media, though she does not give legal advice.
Zacharia was back on the network Friday morning, when Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones pressed her about whether she wished she had disclosed to President Donald Trump that she had not passed the bar exam before accepting the job offer to be press secretary.
“Those questions weren’t asked. I’m being hired as White House press secretary and not White House counsel,” Zacharia answered. “The conversations and the reason, I was, the reason that I was hired was to represent the president in the press.”
KATIE ZACHARIA UNDER FIRE OVER LEGAL BACKGROUND: WHAT TO KNOW
Before her appearances on Fox News, Zacharia also sat with conservative commentator Jack Posobiec for an interview about her first week on the job.
Trump has stood by Zacharia, saying that he “thought she was very good” behind the briefing room podium on Tuesday.