在担任白宫新闻秘书仅五天就被解雇之前，凯蒂·扎卡里亚（Katie Zacharia）大部分时间都在试图解释自己的过去。
Before being fired five days into her stint as White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia spent much of the day attempting to explain her past.
在她短暂的任期内，扎卡里亚的简历一直是众多猜测的焦点。最引人注目的是，尽管她在职业生涯中大部分时间都声称自己是一名律师，但她从未真正通过加州律师资格考试，这一点她最终被迫承认。据《连线》（WIRED）报道，她职业经历中的另一个元素是，她曾担任健身多层次营销公司Beachbody的联盟营销人员。
Throughout her brief tenure, Zacharia’s resume was the source of much intrigue. Foremost was the fact that despite claiming to be an attorney for much of her career, she never actually passed the California bar, as she was eventually forced to admit. Another element of her professional history, WIRED reported, was a role as an affiliate marketer for Beachbody, a fitness MLM.
《连线》现在发现了她与一家名为NRED智能矿业（NRED Intelligent Mining）的AI驱动稀土采矿业务的新细节，该公司的战略顾问包括前国土安全部部长克里斯蒂·诺姆（Kristi Noem）。
WIRED has now uncovered new details of her relationship to an AI-powered rare earths mining operation called NRED Intelligent Mining, which counts former Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem as a strategic advisor.
6月24日，当时名为NovaRed Mining的NRED公司——一家位于加拿大温哥华的小型铜金勘探公司——发布了一份声明，称扎卡里亚（她在两个月前离开了国土安全部发言人的职务）将与诺姆一起加入其顾问委员会。
On June 24, NRED—then known as NovaRed Mining, a small copper-and-gold exploration company in Vancouver, Canada—issued a release to share that Zacharia, who had left a role as a DHS spokesperson two months before, was joining the advisory board alongside Noem.
根据该声明，在她的新职位上，扎卡里亚将为NovaRed董事会提供“战略指导”，以推进勘探项目以及“新兴人工智能计划”。然而，似乎她从未在那里工作过。周五被问及她是否仍在董事会任职时，她说：“那是假的”，并将《连线》转介给萨姆·阿姆斯特丹（Sam Amsterdam），一位“战略营销和媒体互动专业人士”，其客户包括哈萨克斯坦政府以及格鲁吉亚、尼日利亚和津巴布韦的政党。
In her new role, according to the release, Zacharia would provide “strategic guidance” to NovaRed’s board of directors as it advanced exploration projects as well as “emerging artificial intelligence initiatives.”It does not appear, though, that she ever worked there. When asked on Friday whether she was still on the board, she said, “That was fake,” and referred WIRED to Sam Amsterdam, a “strategic marketing and media engagement professional” whose clients have included the government of Kazakhstan and political parties in Georgia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.
“该声明未经扎卡里亚女士批准，是在未经她同意的情况下发布的，”阿姆斯特丹说，他的兄弟在该公司网站上被列为NRED管理层成员，并表示他以扎卡里亚的朋友和同事身份发言，而非代表。“我知道这一切都是事实。”他很快补充说，虽然曾有过她加入该公司的讨论，但她实际上并未加入。
“That release was not approved by Ms. Zacharia and was issued without her consent,” says Amsterdam, whose brother is listed as a member of NRED management on the company’s website and said he was speaking as a friend and colleague of Zacharia, not a representative. “I know all that to be factual.”He quickly added that while there had been discussions of her joining the company, she hadn’t actually done so.
瓦伦丁·塞塔尔利（Valentin Saitarli）曾任NRED首席技术官，并表示他正在接任CEO一职，他确认曾就该职位进行过讨论，但表示“从未实现”，并补充说：“这有点像报名参加健身房，但从未真正去锻炼。”描述NRED时，塞塔尔利说：“我们全力投入机器人和人工智能。”尽管阿姆斯特丹方面认为该任命已被撤销，但截至周五，声称扎卡里亚将加入公司的新闻稿仍留在NRED的官网上。该网站的存档版本显示，扎卡里亚至少自7月起就被列为管理层成员。
Valentin Saitarli, who was NRED’s chief technology officer and says he is onboarding as CEO, confirmed that there were discussions about a role, but said that it “never materialized,” adding, “It was a bit likeg up for a gym but never actually going for a workout.”Describing NRED, Saitarli says, ”We go full robots and AI.”Despite Amsterdam’s understanding that it had been withdrawn, the press release claiming Zacharia was joining the company remained on NRED’s website as of Friday. An archived version of their website showed Zacharia listed as management as of at least July.
当《连线》杂志（WIRED）向塞塔尔利询问此事时，他表示该网站正在更新中。
When WIRED asked Saitarli about this, he said that the site was being updated.
扎卡里亚（Zacharia）的NovaRed职位是在诺姆（Noem）任命宣布八天后才公布的。她曾在诺姆手下担任国土安全部（DHS）公共事务副助理新闻秘书约一个月，据报道她与DHS事实上的首席顾问科里·莱万多夫斯基（Corey Lewandowski）关系密切。（她曾向《每日邮报》（The Daily Mail）否认存在任何此类关系。）诺姆加入一家加拿大矿业公司顾问委员会的宣布引发了加拿大人的强烈不满，他们指出诺姆过去曾发表言论，将加拿大称为“第51个州”。
Zacharia, whose NovaRed role was announced eight days after Noem’s appointment was announced, worked under Noem as DHS’s deputy assistant press secretary for public affairs for about a month, and was reported to have close ties with de facto DHS chief of staff Corey Lewandowski. (She denied any such ties to The Daily Mail.) The announcement that Noem was joining the advisory board of a Canadian mining company triggered an outcry among Canadians, who pointed to past statements she made referring to Canada as the “51st state.”
当时，《环球邮报》（The Globe and Mail）将NovaRed描述为“一家不产生收入的铜和金勘探公司”。该报指出，今年1月，NovaRed仅有65,689美元现金，公司表示这“不足以覆盖其未来12个月的所有预期支出”。但到了春天，情况发生了变化。NovaRed开始用与国防部门、MAGA及其他国际实体有关联的重量级人物充实其顾问委员会，而不是通常初级矿业公司会聘请的地质学家和技术顾问。
At that time The Globe and Mail described NovaRed as “a copper and gold exploration company that generates no revenue.”The paper noted that in January, NoraRed was holding only $65,689 in cash, which the company said “wouldn’t be enough to cover all of its expected expenses for the next 12 months.”But around the spring, something changed. NovaRed began stacking its advisory board not with geologists and technical consultants—which would be typical for a junior mining company—but with heavy hitters with ties to the defense sector, MAGA, and other international entities.
本月初，NRED宣布将放弃其旗舰项目Wilmac铜金矿项目，将所有资源投入到开发和商业化其“AI辅助矿产勘探平台”“MetalCore”中。
Earlier this month, NRED announced that it was pivoting away from its flagship Wilmac Copper-Gold Project, and putting all its resources into developing and commercializing “MetalCore,” its “ AI-assisted mineral exploration platform.”
“我想建立新一代的机器人和采矿业务，”Saitarli对《连线》杂志说。“我们是想停留在石器时代或马车时代吗？不，我们想在火星上生活，在太空酒店度过时光，在月球上举办婚礼……希望我们能将机器人和人工智能带到全球采矿业乃至地球之外。”
“I want to build a new generation of robotics and mining,” Saitarli tells WIRED. “Do we want to get stuck in the Stone Age or horses age? No, we want to live on Mars, spend time in hotels in space, have a wedding party on the moon…We will bring robotics and AI to global mining and beyond our planet, hopefully.”
菲尔·厄尔（Phil Ehr）是一名退役美国海军指挥官，今年早些时候以民主党人身份在佛罗里达州竞选国会议员，今年早些时候加入了NovaRed。“我对采矿一无所知。我对大宗商品一无所知，”厄尔在一次电话采访中对《连线》杂志说。“但我知道我们需要更多铜。我知道我们需要更多关键矿产。”
Phil Ehr, a retired US Navy commander who is running for Congress as a Democrat in Florida, was brought into NovaRed earlier this year. “I know nothing about mining. I know nothing about commodities,” Ehr tells WIRED in a phone call. “But I do know that we need more copper. I do know that we need more critical minerals.”
他说，自己在公司只待了几个月，就被NovaRed的公告措手不及，该公告称克里斯蒂·诺姆（Kristi Noem）和“另一位国土安全部发言人”——他记得此人名为扎卡里亚（Zacharia）——也已加入顾问委员会。
He had only been at the company for a couple of months when, he said, he was blindsided by NovaRed’s announcement that Kristi Noem and “another DHS spokesperson”—whom he recalls being Zacharia—had also been brought onto the advisory board.
“据我所知，[扎卡里亚]和克里斯蒂·诺姆同时加入，没有征求我的意见，就‘砰’地一下出现在那里，”厄尔回忆道。
“To the best of my knowledge, [Zacharia] came at the same time as Kristi Noem did without any consultation to me and was just like, boom, there,” recalls Ehr.
诺姆未立即回应置评请求。她刚刚结束监督明尼阿波利斯那场灾难性的ICE占领行动，厄尔不想与她有任何关联。“我问公司，‘克里斯蒂·诺姆为什么在这里？我无法与她合作，因为她太有争议了。在联邦政府什么是对什么是错的问题上，我们站在对立面，’”厄尔说。
Noem, who did not immediately reply to requests for comment, was fresh off overseeing the disastrous ICE occupation in Minneapolis, and Ehr didn’t want to be associated with her. “So I asked the company, “Why is Kristi Noem here? I just can't work with her because she is so controversial. We are on different sides of what's right and wrong in, in the federal government,” says Ehr.
他觉得NovaRed似乎在用和他一样对采矿业了解甚少的人充实其队伍很奇怪。他原本以为会有地质学家或技术顾问加入。但事实上，被雇佣的一些人包括格雷戈里·费杜恩，此前他曾“作为阿联酋阿尔穆拉王室在多个国际项目上的关键顾问”，还有媒体高管李·卡普林，他是HBO《真探》系列的联合制片人。诺姆加入后不久，埃赫尔就辞去了顾问委员会的职务。
He thought it was odd that NovaRed seemed to be stacking its ranks with people who, like him, didn’t know very much about the mining industry. He expected some geologists in the mix, or technical consultants. Instead, some of the other people hired included Gregory Fedun, who previously “served as a key advisor to the United Arab Emirates’ Al Mualla Royal Family on a range of international projects,” and media executive Lee Caplin, coproducer of HBO’s True Detective series. Ehr resigned from the advisory board not long after Noem joined.
在她试图澄清自己与NRED关系性质的时候，扎卡里亚也在处理其他事务。周四晚上，她仍担任白宫新闻秘书期间，扎卡里亚联系了一位《WIRED》记者，建议他们联系健身影响者珍妮尔·萨默斯，以获取关于Beachbody的“澄清”——她之前曾与该多层次营销公司有关联，而萨默斯正是把她拉进去的人。
While she was attempting to clarify the nature of her relationship to NRED, Zacharia was also tending to other matters. On Thursday evening, while she still held her position as White House press secretary, Zacharia reached out to a WIRED reporter to suggest they contact fitness influencer named Jenelle Summers for “clarity” on Beachbody, the MLM she was previously affiliated with and which Summer brought her into.
萨默斯表示，她对扎卡里亚——她说自己是在网上认识的——印象不深，除了“他一直对我很好，而且是个热爱健身、相信产品和项目的人”之外。“就我的记忆而言，”她补充道，“她在这方面并没有做太多事情。”萨默斯否认自己曾卷入“金字塔骗局”——这是扎卡里亚对《WIRED》描述该公司的方式。“那种想法有点老派了，”萨默斯说。“那是一种网络营销商业模式。”“除了说她一直对我很好之外，我对此没有其他评论，”当被问及她对扎卡里亚声名鹊起的看法时，她说。
Summers said she didn’t recall much about Zacharia—whom, she said, she met online—other than that “she was always kind to me and someone that was into fitness and believed in the products and programs.”“To my recollections,” she added, “she didn't do much with it.”Summers rejected the idea that she had been involved in a “pyramid scheme,” which is how Zacharia had characterized the company to WIRED. ”That's kind of old school thinking,” Summers said. “It was a network marketing business model.”“I don't have any comment on that other than to say she's always been kind to me,” she said when asked what she made of Zacharia’s rise to prominence.
扎卡里亚未对解雇事件的置评请求作出回应。当被问及他是否对她被解雇有何评论时，阿姆斯特丹对《WIRED》记者说：“嗯，这对我来说可是新闻啊！”
Zacharia did not respond to requests for comment on her firing. When asked if he had comment on her having been let go, Amsterdam told a WIRED reporter, “Well, that’s news to me!”