USAupdated 1h ago2 min read
Susie Wiles Helped Set Up Katie Zacharia’s Fox Grilling Before Trump Fired Her
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Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff, helped arrange Hannity interview that preceded Zacharia's firing. Interview described as a sanctioned hit by multiple outlets.
Fox grilling before firing
Katie Zacharia was grilled by Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday during his primetime show as Hannity asked her questions about her legal credentials after scrutiny arose regarding her classification of herself as an attorney.
“You took the bar exam but you didn't pass the bar exam. Correct?”
Zacharia replied to Hannity, "Correct, yes Sean," after Hannity asked, "You took the bar exam but you didn't pass the bar exam. Correct?"
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles helped set up the news interview as a "sanctioned hit" because Zacharia was not her preferred choice to replace Karoline Leavitt, according to a report cited by NDTV.
Trump fired Zacharia hours after the interview, and Trump told reporters he had asked Zacharia to "reconsider" the job, saying, "there's no reason you have to go through this."
Wiles, Cheung, and Hannity
A senior White House official told The Telegraph that "Susie and Sean do talk, but Susie did not need to feed [Mrs Zacharia] to Sean or anybody else. It's not her style."
White House communications director Steven Cheung dismissed the reporting on Wiles' involvement as speculation, saying, "All of this breathless speculation is just that—speculation."
Fox News Media said Hannity chooses whom to interview and what questions to ask, and a Fox News insider said it was clear by the end of the week that Zacharia "did herself in with her own performance."
The Independent reported that Hannity opened the Thursday night interview by emphasizing that it was "widely panned" and lasted just 14 minutes, and Hannity asked Zacharia whether she had failed the bar exam.
Bar exam dispute and exit
Zacharia told Hannity she graduated from Pepperdine University School of Law and said she viewed the state bar exam results as "inconsequential" because she and her husband had immediate plans to relocate to China. Zacharia said she sat for the test only because she was already registered and did not want a "withdrawal status" on her academic record, and she described herself as a "lawyer" rather than an "attorney" after consulting the president of Pepperdine University.
“Zacharia, 41, was ousted Friday after just five days on the job.”
The Daily Beast reported that Zacharia held her first press briefing Tuesday morning, and it said her unraveling took just four days before she was axed less than 24 hours later. The Independent reported that Zacharia was ousted Friday after just five days on the job, and it said her extremely brief tenure was defined by a single, 14-minute press briefing that drew criticism from Trump’s allies and critics alike.