Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Former Fox News personality-turned-Donald-Trump-aide Monica Crowley has been accused of plagiarizing large parts of her 2012 book. A report by CNN's Kfile on Saturday said Crowley's bestselling book “What The (Bleep) Just Happened” is riddled with stolen passages. The report pointed out dozens of excerpts that were reportedly lifted from other sources, including news articles, columns, essays by think tanks, and even Wikipedia. Crowley allegedly stole word-for-word phrases from all the most well-known news organizations, including the Associated Press, the BBC, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The report alleges that she also snatched entire sections from certain websites and news articles, including a piece on Keynesian economics from Investopedia.
In other instances, the report says, Crowley relied on one of her friends, National Review author Andrew C. McCarthy, taking whole passages from his work. The report provides a side-by-side comparison of each original piece of writing with the plagiarized version. The copied sources are too vast to list, though it appears she has branched out since earlier plagiarism allegations against her in 1999. At that time, Slate said a column by Crowley in the Wall Street Journal had actually been stolen from a 1988 article in a neoconservative magazine. Crowley, who denied it at the time, has yet to comment on the latest claims against her. But a statement from Trump's transition team dismissed the accusations as an “attempt to discredit” her. Crowley, who was praised by Trump's team for her “exceptional insight and thoughtful work,” is due to become Trump's senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council. HarperCollins, the publisher of her book, also has yet to comment on the matter.