Bipartisan Ethics Experts Call for California State Bar and Attorney General to Investigate Katie Zacharia for Unauthorized Practice of Law
October 15, 2026
Complaint details allegations that White House press secretary practiced law without an active California legal license
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democracy Defenders Fund and Former Associate Counsel to George W. Bush, Richard Painter, submitted a letter to the State Bar of California and the Office of the Attorney General last night requesting an immediate investigation into whether White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia practiced law without a license in California.
From January 2024 until March 2025, Zacharia served as general counsel for Fix California, a nonprofit social welfare organization, despite apparently not being actively licensed with the State Bar of California or any other U.S. jurisdiction, the complaint alleges.
“The White House press secretary is the voice of the administration, and we should be able to trust what he or she says,” said Amb. Norm Eisen (ret.), co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund. “Here, however, we have a press secretary who apparently was practicing law without a license. How can we trust someone who appears to have held themselves out to be one thing when they are not? No one is above the law, which is why we’re calling on the state bar and the attorney general to thoroughly investigate these serious allegations.”
Under California rules prohibiting the unauthorized practice of law, anyone who practices law or falsely holds themself out as a lawyer without a license is, “guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in a county jail or by a fine of up to one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that fine and imprisonment.” As noted in the complaint, Zacharia has repeatedly identified herself as an attorney on social media, in television and radio appearances in addition to purportedly being employed as general counsel for Fix California. These grave violations of the law warrant investigations from the California State Bar and state attorney general to determine whether anyone relied on her representations to their detriment and to take measures to prevent future violations.
Read the full letter here.
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Democracy Defenders Fund brings together a nonpartisan team to work with national, state and local allies across the country to defend in real-time the foundations of our democracy.
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