Monica Crowley Turns Down Role In Donald Trump Administration Following Plagiarism Scandal

Monica Crowley, who was tapped by Donald Trump to join his administration as senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council, announced Monday that she will not be working for the White House following multiple accusations of plagiarism.

It began with a devastating investigation by CNN, which found that Crowley's 2012 book, "What the Bleep Just Happened?" had more than 50 passages lifted from other sources without appropriate credit.

In its report, CNN quoted a Trump transition spokesperson defending Collins: "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."

Following these reports, Politico Magazine found that multiple passages in Crowley's 2000 Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University, "Clearer Than Truth: Determining and Preserving Grand Strategy: The Evolution of American Policy Toward the People’s Republic of China Under Truman and Nixon," used language from other authors without proper citations. She was also found to have plagiarized in an article on Nixon in the Wall Street Journal in 1999.

A followup CNN article also found multiple plagiarized passages in Crowley's work at the Washington Times, where she served as a columnist and online opinion editor. The Washington Times said Monday she no longer writes for the paper, and the executive editor announced a review of her previous work

Then, on Jan. 12, HarperCollins told CNN that it would pull Crowley's book "until such time as the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material."

How bad was it? CNN's story places the passages in question side-by-side. Here are just two examples they cite.

First from Aaron Klein in 2011:

Reuters reported on the billionaire’s connection to Adbusters, the magazine that is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Adbusters is funded by the Tides Center, which acts like a massive clearinghouse of donations to a slew of liberal groups

Now Crowley, from "What the Bleep Just Happened?":

Reuters reported Soros’s connection to Adbusters, the magazine that is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after the Arab Spring" protests brought down governments in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Adbusters is funded by the Tides Center, which collects and disseminates a huge number of donations to a slew of Leftist groups.

Notice any similarities?

Then there's this, from James Rosen in 2010:

At the time, Pelosi was the House Minority Whip and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. She said in May 2009 that CIA briefers told her that "the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal," and added that waterboarding "was not being employed."

CIA records show that during the September 2002 briefing, Pelosi and others were given "a description of the particular enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed" on Zubaydah. The U.S. was already waterboarding Zubaydah by that point. CIA officials said they believed agency briefers had indeed informed Pelosi that Zubaydah was undergoing waterboarding sessions.

Crowley again:

At the time, Pelosi was the House Minority Whip and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. She said that CIA briefers told her that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal" and added that waterboarding was not being employed."

However, CIA records show that during the September 2002 briefing, Pelosi and others were given a description of the particular enhanced interrogation techniques that had been employed" on Zubaydah, who was already being water-boarded. CIA officials said they believed agency briefers had indeed informed Pelosi that Zubaydah was undergoing waterboarding, and other members of Congress present at the 2002 briefing corroborated the CIA’s version of events.

It's perfectly fine, of course, to draw inspiration and event text from the works of others. But when you do so, you must give them proper credit and not claim their words as your own. As the CNN report points out, Crowley's book does not even include a bibliography.

Whether Crowley withdrew herself from consideration for the White House role or the Trump team forced her to step aside, we can't be sure. Her statement only says that she's doing so to "pursue other opportunities."

If you want a copy of Crowley's book, you'll have trouble finding it on Amazon. However, a parody version is now the top search result for the book's title. You can buy: "What the Bleep Just Happened: The Warrior's Guide to the Great Copy and Paste."

Only 10 days have passed since Jan. 7, when CNN's first report was published. Since then, Crowley has gone from being a bestselling conservative author and sought-after commentator with a clear path to power in the White House to a disgraced writer with a book pulled from Amazon and her publisher. Crowley is no doubt asking herself, "What the [BLEEP] just happened?!"

Photo credit: Wochit screenshot from YouTube