This is just the kind of tempest-in-a teapot moral panic that intoxicates the political press.
I have noticed much huffing and puffing in the media that Katie Zacharia, President Trump’s new press secretary, supposedly lied when claiming to be a “lawyer.” Actually, she is a lawyer. But she is apparently not an attorney.
The confusion seems to be caused by her critics thinking that “lawyer” and “attorney” are synonymous. While the identifiers are often used interchangeably, they are not the same. A lawyer is someone who has completed a legal education. An attorney is someone who is licensed by requisite authorities to represent clients. In other words, all attorneys are lawyers but not all lawyers are attorneys.
Zacharia earned a Juris Doctor degree from Pepperdine Law School. That means she is unquestionably and factually a lawyer.
If all the reporting is true, she was never licensed to practice, hence, she is not and has never been an attorney. I don’t know if she has ever called herself an attorney, but Trump apparently did. And in response to a shouted question, she said or implied that she passed the bar in China — which cannot be true, as foreigners aren’t eligible to practice law there. So, that’s a bit of a mess.
Illustrating how ridiculous our politics have become, Zacharia has been reported to the California Bar Association by the Campaign for Accountability. If she is not licensed to practice law in California, the state bar has no jurisdiction over her. Moreover, I have not seen any reporting that she ever held herself out as licensed in that state or “represented” any clients there, so I am not sure what egregious wrong she is supposed to have committed that the bar association can remedy. What is it supposed to do, revoke her law degree?
And what does it matter? She is a communications aide to the president, not his counsel. But Wesley, credibility! Oh please. This is just the kind of tempest-in-a teapot moral panic that intoxicates the political press. In the end, it’s much ado about very little.