Katie Zacharia admits she never passed legal exam as scrutiny mounts over her past claims of being a lawyer – live

Attorneys and experts are raising the alarm that immigrants at Camp East Montana, the sprawling desert detention camp on the Fort Bliss military base in west Texas, face a risk of serious injury or death because of ongoing, extreme health and safety hazards there, according to a fresh court filing, the Guardian can reveal.

The allegedly dangerous conditions persist at the tent jail, the largest immigration detention facility in the US, despite regular reports from inside and outside the federal government that it has violated dozens of official standards since it opened last year.

One correctional expert, who has run two state prison systems, Dean Williams, said in testimony as part of the new filing that conditions at Camp East Montana “shock the conscience” and were “far beyond those of the most secure prisons I have overseen”, even though it is a civil, not a criminal, detention facility and the vast majority of the men and women held there have no criminal records.

“Poor healthcare and unsafe conditions at Camp East Montana have resulted in preventable death and put all people at risk of harm, including serious injury and death,” said another expert, Jeffrey Keller, a doctor and administrator who has run the healthcare for detention centers in nine states, as part of the filing.

The new documents were filed in federal court in the western district of Texas, El Paso, on Thursday night as part of a lawsuit filed in May.

It was the first lawsuit relating to Camp East Montana, and was revealed by the Guardian at the time. The class-action lawsuit filed against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accuses the agency of “dire” conditions that severely violated the human and constitutional rights of those at the facility.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, Amentum and the Pentagon have been approached for comment. The Pentagon referred the Guardian to DHS.

Camp East Montana has received “among the highest number of violations in a single report of any facility” inspected by the government watchdog, the Office of Detention Oversight, according to the non-profit newsroom Pogo Investigates.

Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary says it is “unknown” how much she will engage with the press, amid mounting questions over her legal credentials after admitting she did not pass the bar exam.

In a brief interview with the Guardian, Katie Zacharia detailed the whirlwind sprint to replace her predecessor Karoline Leavitt as the US president’s chief spokesperson.

Just six days after receiving a call from the White House, Zacharia stepped behind the podium for her first briefing as press secretary, in a debut that has been widely panned.

Asked by the Guardian what reasons the White House gave for offering her the position, Zacharia – who previously served as an adviser to Trump Media Group, which owns the president’s Truth Social platform, and had a brief stint as a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security – declined to comment.

Now the White House press secretary, she also would not clarify on Thursday how often she intended to brief the press. She said that was “unknown at this time” and that Trump “is his best spokesperson, and I will interact as needed”.

“I follow the president’s lead,” Zacharia added.

Trump’s new press secretary Katie Zacharia has been on the defense since her shaky first appearance in the White House briefing room on Tuesday and questions about her credentials as a lawyer.

In addition to her Fox News appearance this morning, she was also on the network late last night to speak to Sean Hannity and defend her performance in which she only took questions from three outlets and abruptly ended the briefing after 14 minutes.

“I really stepped up to the plate to do the press conference, Sean, with very little prep time,” Zacharia said. “I received briefing materials in the morning of Tuesday, and I went to deliver all of the great results that president Trump is delivering for the American people… And then I took several questions. They’ve said I only took questions from conservative outlets. However, the Daily Mail is not known to be a conservative outlet or friendly to conservative. So I do challenge that narrative.”

Hannity went on to do something rare for a Fox News commentator: he challenged a Trump administration official. Here is a bit from that interview:

Hannity: Now, you did go to Pepperdine. Pepperdine is a good school, no doubt about it. You took the bar exam, but you didn’t pass the bar exam, correct?

Zacharia:Yes, Sean.

Hannity:Okay, so you ever take it a second time?

Zacharia:So for background, I graduated Pepperdine, got married in the same week, and we had all intend to move out to China. I had already pre-registered for the bar exam. And during basically during the summer, I knew I would be living in China, and the results of the bar were inconsequential. And I sat for it because I didn’t want to have a withdraw status. And then I moved over to China and where I did get a job in an international practice of a Chinese law firm, I was doing multi cross country border transactions and multimillion dollar shareholder agreements.

Hannity: And I want to ask you specifically – I know that part of the story, and you did do all of that – but did you ever take the bar exam a second time?

Zacharia:I did not.

Hannity:You did not. Okay. So you you said you consulted with many people and they advise you that it was okay to call yourself a lawyer, but not an attorney, correct?

Zacharia: Correct.

Hannity:Okay. There’s a report out tonight that showed 15 social media posts where you identify yourself as an attorney.

Zacharia: I think they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said those not endorsing the title, they were retweets of a title that had been given.

Hannity: Look, that is a very tough room. and I’ve known a lot of press secretaries over the years. And following on the heels of Karoline Leavitt is very tough and speaking for Donald Trump makes everything tougher. Why not just say, “I went to Pepperdine Law school and then took a different career path, and I took the bar once and didn’t pass it”? Why get into this long, drawn out definition between the difference between a lawyer and an attorney? Because I don’t think most people see much of a distinction. Why didn’t you just say “I never practiced law”?

Katie Zacharia, Trump’s new and already under fire press secretary, was asked if she still had the confidence of the president when she appeared on Fox & Friends this morning.

Zacharia had a bumpy start to her new role, with her first press briefing being widely derided as awkward and needing quick improvement.

Zacharia also faced questions after repeatedly describing herself as a lawyer. No public record shows she has ever been licensed to practice law in the US states where she resided, and her answer to reporters’ questions earlier this week only deepened scrutiny.

On Friday, Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence B Jones asked her: “Katie, do you, and it’s a tough question, do you think you still have the confidence of the president?”

She replied: “I’m standing here and I was able to travel with him through all the midterm rallies and I hope to be able to build the trust and confidence of everyone around me.”

A reminder my colleague Jakub Krupa is covering the latest out of Europe, including the most recent fallout between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, which began after the US president lifted diesel sanctions on Russia.

Zelenskyy got asked by Sky News if he feels he’s being treated as a scapegoat for Trump’s domestic problems ahead of the November midterm elections.

In response, he pauses for 15 seconds, and eventually smiles before saying: “This is my answer.”

Follow along with Jakub here:

Donald Trump will begin the day in Washington, before he resumes his midterms campaign blitz and heads to Dalton, Georgia for a rally at 2.45pm ET.

We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets under way.

The president will then travel to Palm Beach, Florida, for a Republican National Committee event which will be closed to the press.

Trump is also spending his Saturday on the trail, when he heads to Highland Heights, Kentucky – which sits on the border of Ohio – for another midterms rally.

Organisers for the No Kings movement are set to hold over 3,000 events across all 50 states and Washington DC this weekend in order to get people to the polls early for the upcoming US midterm elections.

No Kings, a movement led by a coalition of protest groups that began during Donald Trump’s second presidential term, are aiming to make Saturday the largest single day of early voting in US history while also creating a network of volunteers who can defend the democratic process against any possible sabotage.

Hunter Dunn, a member of anti-fascist group 50501 who is a part of the movement, said that the movement’s goal “isn’t just to demonstrate people power. It’s to channel people power into something useful.”

A Trump ally has been fired from his role as a special envoy hours after it was reported that he had engaged in a months-long email fight with the deputy secretary of state.

Paolo Zampolli, an Italian-born former modelling agent and a personal friend of the president, was ousted from his role as the United States special representative for global partnerships on Thursday after a story by Politico showed that he had been clashing with Christopher Landau.

Messages obtained by Politico showed that the pair disagreed on numerous issues, including Zampolli overstepping his remit and Landau blocking him from making certain trips, which Zampolli threatened to complain to Trump about. Throughout the feud, emails exchanged between the two were also sent to “more than a dozen government officials”, including the presidential personnel director Dan Scavino.

Zampolli also accused Landau of leaking information, which the latter denied, replying: “Your threats and accusations are getting more and more bizarre, defamatory, and inappropriate for broad dissemination on email. I have no idea what you are talking about and categorically deny being the source of anything.”

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Donald Trump has accused fellow Republicans of “doing everything possible to make it hard” for Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee in the Texas Senate race.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump lambasted incumbent senator John Cornyn and political strategist Karl Rove, claiming that they were “sadly, and very stupidly” working against Paxton due to personal jealousy towards him, and accused the pair of “hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!”

He added: “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career.”

Despite Texas being seen a Republican safe seat by many in the party, polls show the Democratic nominee James Talarico having a slight lead on Paxton, who has served as the attorney general of Texas since 2015.

A loss for Paxton would be seen as a major blow for Trump and the GOP, and would be the first time that a Republican hadn’t won a Senate election in Texas since 1988.

In other developments:

• Katie Zacharia, the White House’s new press secretary, has stated that it is “unknown” how much she will engage with the press or hold briefings with reporters, as questions about her legal credentials continue to be asked following revelations that she failed to pass failed the California bar exam after graduating from law school.

• Donald Trump has labeled a series of Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries as a “disgrace” while describing the the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “more difficult ​to deal with ​than Putin”.