Monica Crowley, the former Fox News commentator who Donald Trump named to a senior national security communications role, plagiarized large parts of her 2012 book, according to a Saturday CNN report.
CNN found that some 50 sections of “What The (Bleep) Just Happened” were lifted from sources including news articles, think tank publications, and Wikipedia. Side-by-side comparisons of the texts show only minor tweaks in the language.
The Trump transition team praised the “thoughtful work” of Crowley, who was chosen to serve as the National Security Council’s senior director of strategic communications, in a statement to CNN.
“Monica’s exceptional insight and thoughtful work on how to turn this country around is exactly why she will be serving in the Administration,” a transition spokesperson said. “HarperCollins—one of the largest and most respected publishers in the world—published her book which has become a national best-seller. Any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country.”
Crowley and HarperCollins, which published the New York Times bestselling book, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The conservative media personality has appeared on Fox since 1998, and before that served as communications director for former President Richard Nixon.
Crowley was previously accused of plagiarism in 1999 after Slate reported that a column she published in the Wall Street Journal was ripped from a 1988 article published in the conservative magazine Commentary.
