You’re correct she did not pass the bar. She passed her law class giving her a law degree. Not technically able to give legal advice.
“Katie Zacharia, not-quite attorney-at-law: She graduated with a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011. By some interpretations, that technically makes her a lawyer.”
Trump supporter interpretations.
Actually, I got that from New York Times lol
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/us/politics/trump-press-secretary-katie-zacharia-lawyer.html
"Three days into her job, Katie Zacharia is facing questions about whether she has embroidered her credentials. She describes herself as a lawyer, and the president called her “an attorney.” When she was asked on Tuesday in which state she passed the bar exam, she twice replied, “When I moved to China.”
Huh?"
"So here’s the truth about Katie Zacharia, not-quite attorney-at-law: She graduated with a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011. By some interpretations, that technically makes her a lawyer, though many legal experts said it would not. But is she an attorney, someone who is licensed to practice law and give legal advice? For that, she would have needed to pass the bar. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that she sat for the California bar exam after graduating law school, but didn’t pass. The Times was unable to find a law license for her in California, or anywhere else she has lived in the United States.
During the brief phone call Wednesday, The Times did not get a chance to press her again about whether she had ever passed a bar exam. But before she had to go, she did explain that when she first began appearing on cable news, she consulted with Pepperdine’s president as to how she should identify herself. She said she was warned not to use the words “attorney” or “esquire,” but that “lawyer” was OK.
But what about “general counsel,” would that be OK? Because, on LinkedIn, Ms. Zacharia identified herself as such for Fix California, a group led by Trump loyalist Richard Grenell.
“You can’t be a general counsel to a company in the United States unless you’re admitted to the bar to practice law,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “A general counsel implies that you’re practicing law, giving legal advice to the company. You can’t practice law without a license.”
On Wednesday, a watchdog group filed a complaint with the State Bar of California, calling for an investigation into whether Ms. Zacharia “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practice law without a license to do so, conduct California law treats as a crime.”