Monica Crowley is a conservative author and pundit who is leaving the Donald Trump administration under the shadow of plagiarism allegations.
Crowley, 48, was going to assume the position of senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council in the Donald Trump administration.
She will no longer take the job. That revelation came a short time after CNN’s KFile published what it said were numerous instances of plagiarism in Crowley’s writing, and Politico then found examples in other work.
Crowley has been a fixture on Fox News for years as a political analyst and has a long career in conservative politics and punditry. She’s made controversial statements and has fervently opposed President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. CNN & Politico Alleged Instances of Plagiarism in Crowley’s Writings
According to CNN, the KFile investigative team found examples of plagiarism in her newspaper columns in the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper and in Crowley’s book.
CNN’s review found more than 50 examples of plagiarism in the 2012 book, “What The (Bleep) Just Happened.” CNN alleged the plagiarism came from many different sources, “including the copying with minor changes of news articles, other columnists, think tanks, and Wikipedia.”
The book was published by HarperCollins and ranked on the New York Times bestseller list. The publisher has removed the book’s online version while the allegations are investigated, reported the Washington Times.
Politico then scoured Crowley’s PHD dissertation and found “more than a dozen sections of text that have been lifted, with little to no changes, from other scholarly works without proper attribution.”
According to Politico, Crowley “was previously accused of plagiarism in 1999 when a reader in California noticed similarities between a Wall Street Journal column she wrote and a 1988 Paul Johnson piece in Commentary.”
2. Crowley Said She Preferred to Remain in New York & Previously Worked for Fox
In a written statement explaining why she wouldn’t join the Trump administration (she was supposed to work under National Security Adviser Mike Flynn), Crowley said, according to The Washington Times: “After much reflection I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration.”
“I greatly appreciate being asked to be part of President-elect Trump’s team and I will continue to enthusiastically support him and his agenda for American renewal,” Crowley continued.
Crowley lost her position as a Fox News commentator when it was reported that she was in line for a job with Trump. She was also rumored to be under consideration for the press secretary’s position, although that gig ultimately went to Sean Spicer, of the Republican National Committee.
On Fox, she sometimes filled in for host Sean Hannity. she also has written columns for newspapers and appeared on radio and MSNBC.
3. Crowley Once Worked for President Richard Nixon
According to the Daily Beast, Crowley worked “as a foreign policy assistant to former President Richard Nixon, according to her Fox News bio. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds a Ph.D. in international affairs from Columbia University.”
Her Fox News bio has since been removed.
Crowley is the author of a book called Nixon in Winter. Her bio for that book reads, “Monica Crowley served as a personal assistant to former president Richard M. Nixon from July 1990 until his death in April 1994. During that period, she maintained a private journal in which she recorded his utterances with transcriptive clarity (a trait she attributes to having written down each conversation immediately after it was concluded).”
In a review of the book, Publishers Weekly called Crowley “confidante, research consultant, travel companion and foreign policy assistant to the former president from 1990 until his death in 1994.”
Crowley was born in Arizona and raised in New Jersey. She got her start with Nixon in college, when a professor encouraged her to read books about the president and she wrote a letter to him, the Boca Raton News reported. Nixon invited her to visit his office and then they struck up a friendship, with him eventually giving her a job in the White House and discouraging her from attending law school, the newspaper reported, adding that it was Crowley’s first job out of college.
4. Crowley Has Described Herself as a ‘Happy Warrior’ & Made Controversial Comments on Muslims
On television, Crowley has accused the parents of Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin of being “essentially tools of the Saudi regime” working toward a Muslim conquest of the west, the Daily Beast reported.
Crowley was criticized for tweeting a picture of herself standing in front of the Berlin Wall with the phrase “walls work.”
She also visited Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest:
On Twitter, she describes herself as “Profoundly honored to serve my country. And will always be a happy warrior.”
Crowley was vocal about her support for Donald Trump.
In a statement, she praised the president-elect for “moral clarity” and vision.
She has criticized Hillary Clinton and President Obama’s reticence to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.”
On election day, Crowley wrote a post on Facebook called “The Battle Cry of the Happy Warrior,” which started: “The choice we make today will be perhaps the most profound public choice of our lifetimes. It will demonstrate what kind of country we are….and what kind of country we will be. There is nothing more sacred in this American life than the vote you hold in your hands today. Love of country is a profound and powerful thing.”
She continued, “The Founding Fathers feared but anticipated a time when all three formal branches of government would be corrupted by dark and malign forces. Knowing human nature, evil ideologies, and how they can destroy even the most well-designed systems of government, they gave us an insurance policy. They vested the ultimate power with us, because they knew that the day America teetered on the brink, we—American patriots generations down the road—would ride to the rescue. They knew that we would fight. We would fight for the Constitution, fight to break free from the bondage of statism, fight for American exceptionalism, fight for this great and grand experiment in human liberty…We are the experienced Patriots. And today, we will take the first step toward preventing America’s ruin and restoring her to the greatness she has earned and which she so deserves. We are the cavalry.”
5. Crowley Is Not Married but her Sister Is Married to Alan Colmes
Crowley is not married, although she has been photographed out on the town in the past with a venture capitalist named Bill Siegel. Her sister, Jocelyn, is married to liberal pundit Alan Colmes, the Huffington Post reported.
A 2007 Washington Post article reported that Siegel was Crowley’s boyfriend at the time, calling him a venture capitalist.
She was born on September 19, 1968.
She has no children and her net worth has been reported at $4 million.