White House chief of staff Susie Wiles helped arrange a tough Fox News interview with former White House press secretary Katie Zacharia, which was described by sources as a “sanctioned hit”, hours before she was removed from the role, according to reports.Zacharia appeared on Sean Hannity’s primetime show on Thursday, where she faced questions about her legal credentials and her brief, troubled stint as White House press secretary. She struggled to defend her record, including her claim to be a lawyer despite failing the California bar exam in 2011.According to The Telegraph, citing people familiar with the matter, Wiles helped set up the interview because Zacharia was not her preferred choice to replace Karoline Leavitt. One source described the appearance as a “sanctioned hit” on the former press secretary.A person familiar with the internal dynamics told Politico that Wiles and Hannity were friendly and spoke often.However, a senior White House official rejected the suggestion that Wiles had deliberately set Zacharia up for a difficult interview. “Susie and Sean do talk, but Susie did not need to feed her to Sean or anybody else. It’s not her style,” the official said, according to The Telegraph and Politico.The official added that Hannity’s interview was not the decisive factor in Zacharia’s exit, pointing instead to her earlier appearance on Fox & Friends and her answers about her legal qualifications.White House communications director Steven Cheung also dismissed reports of Wiles’ involvement as speculation, saying the claims were “fiction that’s not even creative”. He added that Zacharia would continue supporting President Donald Trump as she transitioned to a new role.
What happened during the Fox News interview?
During the interview, Hannity directly asked Zacharia whether she had taken but failed the bar exam. She replied, “Correct, yes Sean.”Zacharia explained that she graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law and sat for the California bar exam in 2011, but did not pass. She said she had been preparing to move to China with her husband and considered the result “inconsequential”.She also said she later worked in the international practice division of a Chinese law firm, handling cross-border corporate transactions, where admission to a US state bar was not required.Asked about social media posts identifying her as an attorney, Zacharia said she believed they were reposts and that she had corrected the record. She maintained that she had consulted legal professionals who advised her she could describe herself as a “lawyer”, though not an “attorney”.The controversy had intensified after her first White House press briefing, which Hannity described as widely criticised. The briefing lasted about 14 minutes and included three questions.Fox News Media said Hannity independently decides whom to interview and what questions to ask.A Fox News source told The Telegraph that Zacharia’s own performance, rather than an orchestrated effort to push her out, had undermined her position.Trump said he asked Zacharia to reconsiderTrump confirmed on Friday that he had advised Zacharia to reconsider whether she wanted to continue as press secretary, saying she had been treated unfairly by the media.“She was on Sean Hannity last night. And Sean was a little bit tough,” Trump told reporters, also referring to her appearance on Fox & Friends.He said he had told her she did not have to continue in the job if she did not want to.Zacharia later confirmed her departure in a post on X, describing it as an honour to have worked for Trump and praising the president.Her exit comes amid reports of tensions within the White House as Trump faces rising political pressure ahead of the US midterm elections.
