For most people, the first week at a new job is a blur of onboarding sessions, forgotten passwords, and awkward small talk with co-workers. For Katie Zacharia, it was a five-day fight to survive her own biography. She had barely arrived at the White House before she was fired as press secretary, making her tenure one of the shortest in modern memory. The world had barely started to learn her name before she was forced to explain why her name had appeared on all the wrong things. The first major scandal was her long-standing claim that she was an attorney. It gradually became clear that she had never passed the California bar, despite allowing people to assume that she had practiced law for years. When confronted, she admitted the truth, but the damage was already done. Her credibility, the most important currency in Washington, was gone. Then WIRED reported that her professional background included work as an affiliate marketer for Beachbody, a fitness company that operates in the controversial territory of multi-level marketing. None of these facts made her a criminal, but they made her a liability. In her role as the person tasked with standing before cameras and defending the administration, she could not defend herself. Her final day in the White House was spent less on policy and more on personal triage: answering questions, consulting lawyers, and trying to figure out how so many things had gone wrong so quickly. It was a very human collapse, one that could happen to anyone who has ever embellished a resume or allowed a generous description to stand. The difference is that most people do not have the entire national press corps analyzing their every word. The White House press secretary is supposed to be the face of the administration, the person who stands at a podium and tells the nation what is happening. If that person is not believable, then the entire administration suffers. Zacharia’s five-day tenure was not just a personal failure; it was an institutional embarrassment. The self-inflicted wound followed her even after she left the building.
While the bar association story was still smoldering, WIRED uncovered a new twist that made everything even stranger. Zacharia had apparently been involved with NRED Intelligent Mining, a company that describes itself as an AI-powered rare earths mining operation. Rare earths are a big deal these days; they are essential for making smartphones, electric vehicles, and advanced defense technology. They are also hard to mine, and the global race to control them is a matter of national security. NRED also had a prominent name on its roster: former Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, listed as a strategic advisor. On June 24, when the company was still known as NovaRed Mining and was basically a small copper-and-gold exploration business based in Vancouver, it put out a press release announcing that Zacharia was joining its advisory board. The timing was notable—she had left her position as a DHS spokesperson only two months earlier. According to the release, Zacharia would provide “strategic guidance” to the company’s board of directors as it pursued both traditional mining projects and what it called “emerging artificial intelligence initiatives.” In a single sentence, the company connected itself to two of the most overhyped trends in the modern economy: AI and rare earths. It also connected itself to two former government officials. Noem’s title gave the company a veneer of political legitimacy; Zacharia’s name gave it a direct link to the White House communications world. The press release read like a business card for an entire new industry: former officials, cutting-edge technology, and speculative mining, all wrapped in a tidy corporate announcement. There was just one obvious problem: no evidence that Zacharia had ever actually taken on that role. The press release was clearly meant to generate buzz, but instead it became another embarrassing document in a rapidly growing pile.
The reality, according to Zacharia, is much less flattering. When asked Friday whether she was still on NRED’s board, she did not hesitate: “That was fake.” Then she directed WIRED to Sam Amsterdam, a strategic marketing and media engagement professional. Amsterdam’s client list is international and unusual—he has worked for the government of Kazakhstan and for political parties in Georgia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. He is also not entirely a stranger to NRED: his brother is listed as a member of NRED management on the company’s website. Amsterdam explicitly stated that he was not speaking as a company representative but as a friend and colleague of Zacharia. He said the press release had not been approved by Zacharia and had been issued without her consent. “I know all that to be factual,” he said. But then, in the very next breath, he acknowledged that there had been discussions about Zacharia joining the company. He just insisted that she had not actually joined. This is a confusing position to take. If the release was completely fake and unauthorized, why were discussions happening at all? If discussions were happening, maybe the release jumped the gun but was not entirely fabricated. In the world of public relations, this is a classic “too early” announcement, except no one will admit that they were the ones who fired it off. The fact that Zacharia referred a reporter to someone whose brother works at the company makes the situation even more tangled. She did not point to her lawyer. She did not point to a company spokesperson. She pointed to a friend who happens to be connected to the same firm. It is hard to know whether she was trying to protect herself or trying to keep the story contained among friends. What is certain is that the response did not clarify anything; it only added another layer of inside-baseball complexity to a story that already made no sense. It is impossible to know whether Amsterdam was acting as a friend trying to protect her or as a middleman trying to muddy the waters. What is clear is that he did not deny that Zacharia had considered something with NRED. That leaves the impression that the press release was not born out of thin air; it was born out of a conversation, maybe a handshake, maybe a wish. In the world of business, a wish can be as good as a contract—until it is not.
Valentin Saitarli, who was NRED’s chief technology officer and says he is currently being onboarded as CEO, added another layer of ambiguity. He confirmed that there had been discussions about a position for Zacharia, but he said the plan “never materialized.” He used a striking analogy: “It was a bit like signing up for a gym but never actually going for a workout.” That might be the most honest sentence anyone has said about this entire saga. It also suggests that maybe Zacharia had not simply been named without her knowledge; perhaps she had entertained the idea, maybe even expressed interest, and then never followed through. Saitarli described NRED in typical tech-bro language: “We go full robots and AI.” That phrase is almost laughable in its vagueness, but it captures the spirit of modern mining promotion—move fast, talk big, and hope that the market does not ask too many questions. But if Zacharia’s role never materialized, why did the company leave the press release up? Amsterdam said he thought the release had been withdrawn, but that was not true. As of Friday, the release was still on NRED’s website. An archived version of the site also showed Zacharia listed as management at least as of July. So even after everyone involved said the arrangement was fake or incomplete, the company’s own platform kept telling a different story. This is a weird trap. You can say something is fake until you are blue in the face, but if the company website still lists you, the public is likely to believe the website. For Zacharia, who was already dealing with accusations of lying about her legal credentials, having her name stuck to another questionable claim is a nightmare. She might have wanted to be in that boardroom at some point; she might have even imagined herself as a mining-and-AI executive. But the record, once published, is merciless. It does not care about her intentions, her press release consent, or her excuses. It simply stays online, waiting for someone else to scroll down and ask questions. There is a bigger issue here than Zacharia herself. When a company can publish a name like that and then claim it was all a mistake, investors and the general public have no way to know who is really in charge. The company’s own website is a source of truth, but if that source of truth is false, then the entire enterprise is suspect. NRED has now been tainted twice: once by the unauthorized press release, and once by its own failure to correct the record.
All of this is unfolding in a world where words like “strategic advisor” and “advisory board” have become almost meaningless. In theory, an advisor is someone who actually gives advice, who attends meetings, who has a real role in shaping a company’s direction. In practice, these titles are often little more than glittery name tags, given to people who are expected to lend their credibility in exchange for stock options or a fee. Companies eager to look legitimate will wrap themselves in any official-sounding association, from former generals to former press secretaries. Zacharia was not the first person to be attached to a company through a press release that she later disowned, and she will not be the last. But her case is particularly painful because she had already been humbled. She knew better than most that public records have consequences. Yet there she was, caught in another public record, stuck in a narrative that she struggled to overturn. Her own actions made things worse. If she never joined NRED, she should have demanded that the company remove her name immediately. Instead, it seems, she referred journalists to a friend, who gave contradictory explanations, while the press release stayed online. It is almost as if she did not understand how much faster a lie travels than a correction. And this is the human part: she appears to be someone who wanted to be important, wanted to be associated with powerful people, and maybe did not always ask hard questions about what she was attaching herself to. Rare earths, AI, mining, national security—these are all glamorous, high-stakes fields. But glamour is not a substitute for transparency. The whole NRED saga is a reminder that the global economy is full of stories being told before they happen, of promises made by companies that have no assets, and of famous names placed on mastheads to give the impression that someone sensible is watching the store. Sometimes the people whose names are used do not even know how they got there. That may be the most frightening part of all. The same press release that caused Zacharia so much grief was probably meant to attract investors, partners, and maybe even governments. If it was based on a false claim, the company should be held accountable. If it was based on a real offer that Zacharia rejected, then the company should explain why it would not take the press release down. Either way, the sloppiness points to a larger problem in the mining industry, where promotional materials often outpace reality.
At the end of the day, Katie Zacharia’s story is not just a Washington scandal or a corporate mystery. It is a cautionary tale about how easily a person can be overtaken by the story she tells about herself. She wanted to be seen as an attorney, so she let the title stand. She wanted to be seen as a high-ranking government communicator, so she leaned into her DHS role. She may have wanted to be seen as a board member of an innovative mining company, so she let a press release announce it—before pulling away. Her refusal to own the details is understandable; no one wants to admit they were too eager, or that they allowed someone else to put words in their mouth. But the consequences are public. She lost a White House job, and now she loses credibility again. The NRED story is murky, but the one clear fact is that a press release with her name on it remains in circulation. That is not an algorithm problem or a political conspiracy; it is a personal responsibility problem. In a time when every tweet, every email, every press release can be preserved forever, the most important thing any person can have is a clear and honest record. Zacharia’s record now contains a series of doubts. She can call the release fake, and it may be true, but the fact that she needs to call it fake says something about how her name has been treated—by herself and by others. Maybe she is a victim. Maybe she is a participant. Maybe the truth, as often happens, is somewhere in between. But for a person whose entire career depended on communication, the lesson is painful and simple: the truth is not a press release. It is not a title on a website. It is not a mention on an advisory board page. It is something you have to live with, every day, in every decision. Perhaps the happiest ending for Zacharia would be for the press release to disappear and for her to learn a quiet lesson. But the internet does not work that way. Archives, screenshots, and cached pages will keep the story alive. She will have to answer for it in interviews, in background checks, in the minds of potential employers. The only way to escape a bad story is to tell a better one, and the only way to tell a better one is to start with the truth. In the end, no amount of strategic guidance can save you from your own story.
