Regardless of all other aspects, if a person has completed their dissertation and submitted it, had it approved by their advisor(s) and only awaits convening the professors who will pose questions for the dissertation defense (which can sometimes run into scheduling problems with those professors), then this is not a horrible misclaim of academic credentials.
Failure to complete the dissertation and get the advisor’s approval . . . that would definitely be an improper claim of PhD.
But if it just awaits defense . . . while not being a simple rubber stamp of things . . . it does not mean the candidate has not completed all work. Odds are very high this person is about 1 hour from the formal documented PhD. That’s not a horrible claim exaggeration.
A week after she was sacked from her job as an analyst with the Institute of War, Elizabeth O’Bagy has said that not only did she not earn a doctorate from Georgetown University, but she never even attended the PhD program there.
As I understand it, when the story broke she claimed she was at the end stages of getting the PHD, but a week later what I pasted said that she unwinded the lies further and she had never been in the program.
This article today seems to have not heard about the later revelations and is repeating what only came out the first day.