Monica Crowley won’t be taking the high-profile job in President-elect Donald Trump’s National Security Council after all. The former Fox News analyst had been tapped by Trump to be the director of strategic communications for the NSC. “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,” Crowley said in a statement. “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 decided to not take the government job a little more than a week after CNN first reported that it had found more than 50 instances of plagiarism in her 2012 book, What the (Bleep) Just Happened? Shortly thereafter, Politico reported that Crowley had plagiarized several sections of her Ph.D. dissertation.
“The NSC will miss the opportunity to have Monica Crowley as part of our team,” Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn said in a statement. “We wish her all the best in her future.”
The Trump team had vociferously defended Crowley when the charges of plagiarism first surfaced, calling the CNN report a “politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing the country.” But last week, publisher HarperCollins said it would stop selling Crowley’s book. “The book, which has reached the end of its natural sales cycle, will no longer be offered for purchase until such time as the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material,” HarperCollins said in a statement.
Crowley thus becomes the second person who was announced as a member of the incoming administration but who backed out before Trump was sworn in. Earlier, Jason Miller, who had been tapped to be the communications director, also backed out of the job.
