All Rise News spoke to the leader of the watchdog group that filed the complaint.
Watch the full interview in this newsletter, and read the full legal rundown below.
Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has had a rough couple of first days in office, but it could get much worse than a disastrous and widely ridiculed debut press briefing.
Zacharia now faces the possibility of a state bar investigation into whether she has been inappropriately or illegally holding herself out to be a lawyer.
On Wednesday, the Campaign for Accountability’s executive director Michelle Kuppersmith urged the state bar of California to look into her credentials and if warranted, refer the case for criminal prosecution.
“Ms. Zacharia now speaks for the President of the United States from the White House podium. She has relied on her legal pedigree to give her credibility in that role and to her statements as a television legal commentator,” Kuppersmith wrote in a letter on Wednesday. “The public is entitled to rely on the representation that a person who calls herself a lawyer is in fact licensed to practice law.”
Kuppersmith said that she also sent a letter to California’s Ventura County District Attorney’s Office.
‘Very, very strange’
Independent journalist Judd Legum of the publication Popular Information first reported that there is no evidence that Zacharia is licensed to practice law in any of the 50 states or Washington, D.C.
California law states that “any person advertising or holding himself or herself out as practicing or entitled to practice law or otherwise practicing law who is not an active member of the State Bar, or otherwise authorized pursuant to statute or court rule to practice law in this state at the time of doing so, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Zacharia has a juris doctor from Pepperdine University School of Law, but there reportedly isn’t any record of her passing a bar exam or receiving any type of credential in the United States.
Pressed on the subject by the White House press pool during her first day on the job, Zacharia appeared to suggest that she was credentialed in China, working as an associate in Beijing.
The Campaign for Accountability said that isn’t any explanation at all.
“Published reporting indicates, however, that China does not permit foreign nationals to sit for its national bar examination or to practice Chinese law,” the group’s letter states. “In any event, admission in a foreign jurisdiction would not authorize Ms. Zacharia to practice law in California or to hold herself out as entitled to do so here.”
Kuppersmith noted that Zacharia appeared unprepared for the question.
“It’s just all very, very strange,” Kuppersmith told All Rise News. “Clearly, she was not prepared to answer the question, despite everything, having known that there was a real storm around this. And I don’t know what you think your job is as a press secretary, but it’s to be prepared to answer questions, notwithstanding your own personal history when it’s become the news story itself.”
Zacharia’s LinkedIn page states that she worked as a “general counsel” at the nonprofit group Fix California, and she reportedly said that she served as an “outside counsel” for the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
‘Might be competing with Anthony Scaramucci’
The Campaign for Accountability has kept busy during Trump’s second term, filing bar complaints against seven Trump administration officials today.
Those include Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr and disqualified U.S. Attorneys like Lindsey Halligan from the Eastern District of Virginia and John Sarcone from the Northern District of New York.
“Obviously, she can’t be disbarred if she’s not barred,” Kuppersmith noted, adding that Zacharia could face fines or other penalties to stop her from engaging in “this dangerous behavior ever again.”
Blanche has tried to stop bar complaints from being filed against Trump Justice Department officials, suing the D.C. Bar to stop disciplinary probes of Jeffrey Clark and Ed Martin. He also proposed a regulation to give the DOJ a “right” to review disciplinary complaints in the first instance.
If the California state bar agrees to investigate, a probe could take years — as was the case for Trump ally and so-called “coup memo” author John Eastman, who helped devise the plans for election subversion.
Any investigation could outlet Zacharia’s tenure, especially considering how it started.
“We don’t really know if Katie Zacharia is long for the Trump administration,” Kuppersmith said. “She might be competing with Anthony Scaramucci for the shortest tenure. But, you know, we shall see.”
Watch the full video of the interview below and read the bar complaint here.
Also in tonight’s newsletter:
A federal judge interrogates the Trump administration’s excuses for running taxpayer-paid ads after her order to cancel them.
Legal ethics experts demand a Hatch Act investigation into the search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home.
