Former Fox News contributor Monica Crowley is having a rough week, and HarperCollins just made it even more chaotic. The prominent book publisher will stop selling Crowley’s 2012 New York Times bestseller What The (Bleep) Just Happened: The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback because there are apparently multiple cases of plagiarism within said 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.
The decision handed down by the publishing company comes about 48 hours after CNN’s K File found “upwards of 50 examples of plagiarism” within What The (Bleep) Just Happened. Crowley, who is Pres.-elect Trump’s nominee for a strategic communications role in the National Security Council, apparently stole from numerous sources, including news articles, other columnists, and even Wikipedia.
“HarperCollins—one of the largest and most respected publishers in the world—published her book which has become a national best-seller,” a Trump transition spokesperson told CNN. “Any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country.”
And then there’s the report published yesterday by Politico, which alleged that Crowley plagiarized multiple passages of her 2000 Columbia University dissertation: Clearer Than Truth: Determining and Preserving Grand Strategy: The Evolution of American Policy Toward the People’s Republic of China Under Truman and Nixon. Politico was able to locate more than 12 portions throughout the dissertation that show instances of plagiarism.
In 1999, Slate reported a column by Crowley in the Wall Street Journal looked eerily similar to a 1988 article in Commentary, a conservative magazine.
Crowley had her contract terminated by Fox News in December after it was announced that she would accept a role in the Trump administration.
HarperCollins is owned by News Corp. which is controlled by the Murodoch family. Rupert Murdoch is both executive chairman of News Corp. and chairman of Fox News.