White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia is now claiming she misheard a reporter’s question this week about where she took the bar exam.

When a reporter asked Zacharia Tuesday to name the state where she passed the bar exam, she replied, “When I moved to China.”

No public record shows Zacharia has ever been licensed to practice law in the US states where she lived, despite years of claiming she is a lawyer.

On Thursday, Zacharia told The New York Times that she couldn’t hear the question over the din of Marine One on the White House South Lawn as Donald Trump prepared to leave for a campaign rally in Alaska.

“I assumed the question was, ‘Where were you after law school?'” she told the Times.

That’s all I could hear over the sound of Marine One,” she added. “And, wanting to respect protocol, the distance behind the president kept me from moving closer to hear the question.”

On Wednesday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University law school in 2011, but did not pass.

Despite the backlash, the White House is defending Zacharia.

“Katie is a fabulous and wonderful addition to the team,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “She is uniquely qualified and whip-smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary.”