Washington
\nNew White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia acknowledged on Thursday that she had failed the bar exam, a prerequisite for practising law in the United States, as her credentials face scrutiny.
\nZacharia has described herself as a lawyer during television appearances and on social media, and listed herself as general counsel of a California-based conservative nonprofit.
\nBut the legal credentials of the press secretary, who President Donald Trump appointed last week, were called into question after she gave an inconclusive answer about where she had passed the bar exam.
\nThe 41-year-old graduated from Pepperdine University\u2019s law school in 2011, but obtaining a law degree does not automatically qualify someone to practice law.
\nIn a Fox News interview on Thursday, host Sean Hannity asked Zacharia: \u201cYou took the bar exam, but you didn\u2019t pass the bar exam, correct?\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d she responded.
\nIn a separate interview with conservative media outlet Real America\u2019s Voice on Thursday, Zacharia said she had registered to take the bar exam but was \u201cdistracted and overwhelmed\u201d by plans to move to China with her husband.
\n\u201cThe results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn\u2019t need the bar in China,\u201d she said.
\nForeign nationals cannot sit China\u2019s bar exam, although they can undertake certain legal work at Chinese law firms.
\nHannity later asked Zacharia if she had ever taken the bar exam a second time, to which she said: \u201cI did not.\u201d
\n\u201cI had four kids in six years,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was never my intent to go into the practice of law.\u201d
\nZacharia said on Real America\u2019s Voice that \u201cmany people in the field\u201d had assured her that she could \u201clabel myself a lawyer,\u201d given her law degree and experience in business law gained in China, where she worked at a Beijing law firm.
\nShe added that she could \u201cprovide legal analysis, not legal advice.\u201d
\n\u201cI was very careful how I executed this.\u201d
\nThe Campaign for Accountability, a political ethics organisation, called on Wednesday for the California Bar Association to launch an investigation.
\n\u201cIn California, calling yourself a lawyer without a license isn\u2019t puffery; it\u2019s a crime,\u201d the organisation said in a press release.
\nZacharia held her first White House press briefing on Tuesday with an unusually short press conference, answering questions from only three journalists.
\nShe succeeded Karoline Leavitt, a loyal Trump supporter and often combative press secretary, who stepped down in August to care for her young children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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