Zhong Lun is one of the biggest and most well-connected law firms in China. The firm’s clients include China’s Justice Ministry in Beijing. You know, the ministry that the regime uses to harass and intimidate human rights lawyers and anyone else who attracts too much attention for criticizing the state. In 2009, the Zhong Lun firm established its “Communist Party of China Beijing Committee General Party Branch Committee.” If you’re a high-level lawyer in Beijing, you are either a member of the Communist Party of China or at minimum required to swear allegiance to it.
This would not be all that surprising or interesting, if Katie Zacharia had not become the new White House press secretary. You see, from August 2011 to June 2013, Zacharia was a full-time associate on the International Practice Team of the Zhong Lun Law Firm. At least, that’s what her LinkedIn page says.
So, I am much less interested in whether there’s a semantic distinction between “attorney” and “lawyer”, as Wesley Smith discusses below, than knowing what Zacharia did at work during her roughly two years working for a high-powered Beijing law firm with deep ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party. Perhaps there was nothing that is ethically troubling or represents a security clearance issue for working inside the White House, close to the president. But as far as I can tell, Zacharia has never publicly discussed the work she did for that firm in any detail.
At minimum, we should note that if a Democratic administration had a White House press secretary who had worked for a Chinese law firm in Beijing for years, we would already have a Dinesh D’Souza documentary, a special episode of Tucker Carlson, a week’s worth of programming from Glenn Beck, and about a hundred Donald Trump social media posts about it.