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 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 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 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.”
More Must-Reads From TIME
- The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
- The Revolution of Yulia Navalnaya
- 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
- Stop Looking for Your Forever Home
- If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
- The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
- Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
Write to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com