SHAWN McCREESH2026年10月15日Is President Trump’s new press secretary a lawyer — or did she just play one on TV?特朗普总统的新任新闻秘书是一名真正的律师，还是只是在电视上演过律师？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.”上任仅三天，凯蒂·扎卡里亚便面临了履历造假的质疑。她自称是lawyer（律师），而总统则称其为“an attorney”（一位执业律师）。周二，当被问及她在哪个州通过了律师资格考试时，她两次回答称：“我搬去中国的时候。”Huh?啊？The moment capped off a shaky debut for the woman who has accepted what is perhaps the most challenging public relations post in the United States. Now she was struggling to tell her own story.对这位接下了或许是全美最具挑战性的公关职位的女性而言，这一幕为她波折不断的首次亮相画上了句点。如今，她正竭力把自己的经历讲圆。On Wednesday evening, she told The New York Times that this whole mishegas over “lawyer,” “attorney,” and “China,” has been one big misunderstanding.周三晚间，她对《纽约时报》表示，围绕“lawyer”、“attorney”与“中国”的这场纷扰完全是一场大误会。“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?’” she said, taking a quick phone call on the tarmac in Arizona, where the president was holding a midterm rally.“我当时以为问题是：‘你从法学院毕业后去了哪里？’”她说。当时总统正在亚利桑那州举行中期选举集会，她是在停机坪上匆匆接通电话时作出这番回应的。“That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she said. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president, kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”“在‘海军陆战队一号’的噪音下，我只能听清这些，”她说.“而且出于遵守礼宾规程的考虑，我与总统保持着一定距离，这让我无法靠前听清问题。”It was only her second day on the job, she pointed out.她强调，那天只是她履新的第二天。So here’s the truth about Katie Zacharia, not-quite attorney-at-law: She graduated with a law degree from Pepperdine University in 2011. That technically makes her a lawyer. 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.那么，关于这位算不上真正的“attorney”的凯蒂·扎卡里亚，事实究竟是怎样的：她于2011年毕业于佩珀代因大学并获法学学位。严格意义上讲，这确实使她成了一名“lawyer”。但她是否是一名拥有执业许可、能够提供法律咨询的“attorney”？若想具备这一资格，她必须通过律师资格考试。《华尔街日报》周三报道称，她在法学院毕业后曾参加加州律师资格考试，但并未通过。《纽约时报》也未能在加州或她在美居住过的任何其他地方查到其律师执业执照。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.在周三那通简短的通话中，《纽约时报》未能再次追问她是否曾通过任何律师资格考试。但在挂断前，她确实解释称，当初刚开始在有线电视新闻亮相时，她曾就该如何标明自己的身份咨询过佩珀代因大学校长。她表示，当时对方告诫她不要使用“attorney”或“esquire”这类称谓，但表示使用“lawyer”没有问题。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.但使用“总法律顾问”(general counsel)又是否合规呢？因为在领英上，扎卡里亚在特朗普亲信理查德·格雷内尔领导的团体“修复加州”名下，将自己的职务标注为总法律顾问。“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.”“在美国，你要获得律师资格并获准执业，否则不得担任企业的总法律顾问，”加州大学伯克利分校法学院院长埃尔温·切梅林斯基指出，“‘总法律顾问’意味着你正在从事法律执业工作，正在为企业提供法律建议。没有执照是不得从事法律执业的。”On Wednesday, a watchdog group filed a complaint with the California State Bar Association, 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.”周三，一家监督机构向加州律师公会递交申诉，要求调查扎卡里亚是否存在“在未获执照的情况下，屡次向公众声称自己有法律执业资质，而加州法律将这种行为视为犯罪”。And that brings us to China.这就牵涉到了中国之行。The White House explained this week that Ms. Zacharia moved to China with her husband, Tyler, who had a job at a U.S. private equity firm. While there, she worked on “international transaction law,” Ms. Zacharia has claimed.白宫本周解释称，扎卡里亚是随丈夫泰勒前往中国的，后者当时在一家美国私募股权机构任职。扎卡里亚声称，在中国期间，她从事的是“国际交易法”业务。On her LinkedIn profile, she listed nearly two years of employment at Zhong Lun Law Firm, which is one of China’s biggest law firms, with headquarters in Beijing and offices in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Almaty, Kazakhstan.在其领英个人主页上，她列出了在中伦律师事务所近两年的工作经历。中伦是中国最大的律师事务所之一，总部设在北京，并在东京、纽约、洛杉矶、旧金山以及哈萨克斯坦阿拉木图设有分所。The law firm did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.该律所周三未回应置评请求。Opportunities for foreign lawyers in China are extremely narrow. Foreign nationals cannot sit for China’s bar exam, hold a Chinese lawyer’s license or advise on Chinese law. They can, however, be hired by Chinese law firms to work on cross-border deals and to advise on foreign or international law.外国律师在中国的执业空间极为狭窄。外国公民不得参加中国的司法考试、不得持有中国律师执业执照，也不得就中国法律提供咨询意见。不过，他们可受聘于中国律所参与跨境交易，并就外国法或国际法提供法律意见。Gary Gao, a partner at Zhong Lun who is based in Shanghai, said the firm often hired foreigners for language assistance and to help Chinese staff understand foreign business culture.中伦律师事务所常驻上海的合伙人高俊表示，律所经常聘用外籍人员协助语言沟通，并帮助中国员工理解外国商业文化。“They are not practicing Chinese law at any time,” he said, adding that Ms. Zacharia’s role at the firm would have likely been similar to a paid internship.“他们在任何时候都不具备中国法律执业资格，”他表示，并补充称扎卡里亚在律所的岗位很可能类似于带薪实习。Sida Liu, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in mainland law, said that it is misleading for Ms. Zacharia to describe herself as a former associate at Zhong Lun, because it implies that she was a licensed lawyer in China.专门研究内地法律的香港大学法学教授刘思达指出，扎卡里亚将自己称为中伦律所前“associate”（律师）具有误导性，因为这暗示了她曾是在中国的持证律师。“Chinese law firms can hire foreign nationals to work in their mainland offices, but such individuals are not classified as P.R.C. lawyers because P.R.C. lawyer qualification requires P.R.C. citizenship,” Mr. Liu said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “The title ‘associate’ may therefore be somewhat controversial.”“中国律所可以聘用外籍人士在其内地办公室工作，但这类人员不会被归类为中国律师，因为取得中国律师执业资格必须具备中国国籍，”刘思达说，“因此，使用‘associate’这一头衔可能存在争议。”So what are we to make of all this?那么，这一切到底说明了什么？It was Mr. Trump who called Ms. Zacharia an “attorney,” and she certainly never corrected the record. She called herself “general counsel,” which was misleading at best.特朗普称扎卡里亚为“attorney”，而她显然从未对此进行澄清。她还自称为“总法律顾问”，这至少是一种误导。Confucius wrote in The Analects that without the trust of the people, the state cannot stand. The same goes for a White House press secretary. It is a job that’s all about credibility. It’s pretty tough to succeed if the public (let alone the fourth estate) feels that it cannot trust what it is being told.孔子在《论语》中写道：“民无信不立。”对于白宫新闻秘书而言亦是如此。这是一份完全建立在公信力之上的工作。如果公众（更不用说媒体界了）觉得所听到的内容不可信，那就很难做好这项工作。Kitty Bennett自华盛顿、David Pierson自香港对本文有报道贡献。Shawn McCreesh是《纽约时报》白宫记者，报道特朗普总统及其政府新闻。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。