Katie Zachariah’s NRED Mining Advisory Board Role Was “a Sham,” Company Says

Katie Zachariah spent much of her brief tenure explaining her professional background before she was fired five days after becoming White House press secretary.

Throughout her short tenure, Zachariah’s résumé attracted considerable scrutiny. Most notably, although she had described herself as a lawyer for much of her career, she eventually acknowledged that she had never passed the California bar exam. WIRED also reported that she had worked as an affiliate marketer for Beachbody, a fitness multilevel marketing company.

WIRED has now uncovered additional details about Zachariah’s reported connection to NRED Intelligent Mining, an AI-focused rare-earth mining operation whose strategic advisors include former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

What NRED’s announcement said about Zachariah

On June 24, NRED—then known as NovaRed Mining, a small copper and gold exploration company based in Vancouver, Canada—announced that Zachariah would join Noem on its advisory board. Zachariah had left her public-relations role at the Department of Homeland Security two months earlier.

According to the announcement, Zachariah would provide “strategic guidance” to the company’s board as it advanced exploration projects and “emerging artificial intelligence initiatives.”

Zachariah says the appointment was “a sham”

However, Zachariah apparently never worked for NRED. When WIRED asked Friday whether she remained on the board, she replied, “That was a sham.”

Sam Amsterdam, described as a “strategic marketing and media engagement expert” whose clients include the government of Kazakhstan and political parties in Georgia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, said the release was not approved by Zachariah and was issued without her consent.

Amsterdam’s brother is listed on NRED’s website as a member of the company’s management team. Amsterdam said he was speaking as a friend and colleague of Zachariah, rather than as her agent. He said there had been discussions about Zachariah joining the company, but that she never actually did so.

NRED CEO says the role “never happened”

Valentin Saitari, NRED’s chief technology officer and CEO, said Zachariah had been in discussions about the role but acknowledged that it “never happened.” He compared the situation to “signing up for a gym but not actually going to train.” Saitari also said of NRED: “We’re going to have full robots and AI.”

Despite the statements that Zachariah’s appointment never took place, the announcement that Zachariah joined the company remained on NRED’s website as of Friday. An archived version of the website showed Zachariah listed as a member of management as recently as July.