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Katie Zacharia calls herself a lawyer. Legal experts aren’t sure.

washingtonpost.com · Scott Nover · last updated

There’s no evidence the new White House press secretary was admitted to practice law in the United States.

Katie Zacharia made her debut as President Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary Tuesday morning, breaking news (announcing that Kimberly Guilfoyle had been asked to resign as ambassador to Greece) and sparking commentary about her performance (Trump, for one, said he “thought she was very good”).

But Zacharia has also made news, regarding how she has represented herself and her résumé in public appearances.

“What state did she pass the bar exam in?” a journalist shouted at Trump on Tuesday morning as he walked to Marine One. The president leaned in. Zacharia stood behind him. “She said she’s an attorney,” the journalist repeated. “Where did she pass the bar exam? Which state?”

Trump stepped aside to let Zacharia answer: “When I moved to China,” she appeared to say through muffled audio.

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Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.

Democracy and politics | Signalgate | The CBS submission | Voiceless America


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The First Amendment is facing challenging times: Crackdowns on campus protests prompted both-sides claims of intolerance. Attempts to head off dangerous health misinformation have been characterized as violations of free speech. Donald Trump is publicly punishing news outlets that deviate from his administration’s version of events while privately suing some outlets into submission.

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In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug. 

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