Katie Zacharia has resigned as White House press secretary after less than five days in the role, following sustained criticism of her performance and professional qualifications.
US President Donald Trump confirmed Zacharia’s departure on Friday, saying he had told her she did not have to continue if she no longer wanted the job.
“I said to her, ‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to’. Honestly, if I were her, I would reconsider it,” Trump told reporters.
Zacharia came under scrutiny after her first press briefing on Tuesday lasted about 14 minutes and featured only a handful of questions from reporters.
She subsequently faced mounting pressure over questions surrounding her background and professional credentials, particularly claims that she was a lawyer.
The controversy intensified on Thursday when Zacharia admitted she had never passed a bar examination in the United States, following earlier statements that had caused confusion about her legal status.
In media interviews, she said she had never told Trump that she was a lawyer and explained that she had been appointed to handle communications rather than legal matters.
Her resignation makes her one of the shortest-serving White House press secretaries in modern US history.
The development was also seized upon by Democrats, who described Zacharia’s abrupt departure as a sign of problems within the Republican administration ahead of the US midterm elections in November.
