--- title: Monica Crowley Forgoes Trump Job Amid Plagiarism Allegations description: Monica Crowley, who has been accused of plagiarizing parts of her book, said she will turn down a national-security job offered by Trump canonical: https://time.com/4635841/monica-crowley-donald-trump-plagiarism/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-16T20:03:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T02:44:48.811Z article:section: Politics og:title: Monica Crowley Forgoes Trump Administration Role Amid Plagiarism Allegations og:description: Parts of her book and PhD dissertation appear to be copied from other sources og:url: https://time.com/4635841/monica-crowley-donald-trump-plagiarism/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt011b048f95a2eb99/6988b5b38fd2ee377635566f/gettyimages-131881737.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: 2011 FIDF National New York Gala og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Monica Crowley Forgoes Trump Administration Role Amid Plagiarism Allegations twitter:description: Parts of her book and PhD dissertation appear to be copied from other sources twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt011b048f95a2eb99/6988b5b38fd2ee377635566f/gettyimages-131881737.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Monica Crowley Forgoes Donald Trump Administration Role Amid Plagiarism Allegations > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jan 16, 2017 8:03 PM UTC  Monica Crowley attends the 2011 FIDF National New York Gala at The Waldorf-Astoria on March 22, 2011 in New York City. Monica Crowley attends the 2011 FIDF National New York Gala at The Waldorf-Astoria on March 22, 2011 in New York City. Shahar Azran—WireImage  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jan 16, 2017 8:03 PM UTC Pundit Monica Crowley, who has been accused of plagiarizing parts of her book and Ph.D. dissertation, said Monday that she would not accept the national-security communications post that President-elect Donald Trump had previously offered her. Crowley was to be the senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council and would not have had to go through confirmation proceedings. [She said in a statement](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/16/trump-national-security-spokeswoman-monica-crowley-to-forgo-post-amid-plagiarism-charges/?utm%5Fterm=.21b7c05d5d47) that she “will not be taking a position in the incoming Administration” but did not mention the plagiarism charges. She went on: “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,” according to the Washington _Post_. CNN and Politico first reported the charges of plagiarism. CNN [identified](http://money.cnn.com/interactive/news/kfile-trump-monica-crowley-plagiarized-multiple-sources-2012-book/?iid=EL) passages of her 2012 book, _What the (Bleep) Just Happened_, that had been lifted from columnists, articles and think tanks without proper attribution. Politico [reported](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/monica-crowley-plagiarism-phd-dissertation-columbia-214612) that more than a dozen sections of her dissertation appeared to be directly copied from scholarly works, with little or no changes made to the text. Initially, Trump’s transition team defended Crowley in a statement, saying that “any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country.” Publisher HarperCollins suspended sales of the book last week, issuing a statement that said it had “reached the end of its natural sales cycle.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4635841/monica-crowley-donald-trump-plagiarism/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4635841/monica-crowley-donald-trump-plagiarism/"},"headline":"Monica Crowley Forgoes Donald Trump Administration Role Amid Plagiarism Allegations","datePublished":"2017-01-16T20:03:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T02:44:48.811Z","description":"Parts of her book and Ph.D. dissertation appear to be copied from other sources without attribution","url":"https://time.com/4635841/monica-crowley-donald-trump-plagiarism/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt011b048f95a2eb99/6988b5b38fd2ee377635566f/gettyimages-131881737.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt011b048f95a2eb99/6988b5b38fd2ee377635566f/gettyimages-131881737.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"2011 FIDF National New York Gala","caption":"2011 FIDF National New York Gala","creditText":"Shahar Azran—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4635841/monica-crowley-donald-trump-plagiarism/","name":"Monica Crowley Forgoes Donald Trump Administration Role Amid Plagiarism Allegations"}}]}] ```