What a bleeping liar – perfect for Trump!
What the (bleep) just happened? Conservative commentator Monica Crowley returned to Fox News Channel this week to rip reports that she plagiarized her 2012 book and her 17-year-old doctoral thesis at Columbia.
She claimed such charges have been debunked and that she was the victim of a smear campaign. She is a liar. The revelation, unearthed by CNN in January and followed up by Politico — found more than 50 instances of plagiarism in her “What the (Bleep) Just Happened” — detailed Crowley’s plans to take a high level communications job at the National Security Council and prompted her publisher, Fox News’ sister company HarperCollins, to yank the book from sales, “until such time as the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material.”
Her friend, the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy (from whom she is accused of lifting material) and copyright lawyer Lynn Chu have vigorously defended her.
“I found CNN's splashy ‘plagiarism’ accusation to be ill-supported — a heavily exaggerated, political hit job,” Chu wrote in January on Facebook.
CNN and Politico stand by their reporting. The cable news channel even provided a side-by-side comparison of the material and the sources it was lifted from.
So there Crowley Tuesday night with Fox’s Sean Hannity, and in her first interview since the scandal, Crowley compared herself to General Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and claiming she was simply the victim of a political witch hunt against Trump.
“In some ways, I was something of the canary in the coal mine. The attack on me was a test. What happened to me, what happened to Gen. ( Michael) Flynn, what has happened to Attorney General (Jeff) Sessions, and others is all of a piece,” she said.
“There is a very dangerous and very effective destabilization campaign underway against this President, his administration, and his agenda — and what I hope that the President and his senior aides understand is that these forces are not just looking to delegitimize him. We often talk about that. Sure, they want to do that. They want to personally destroy him, destroy his presidency, and they would like to see the man in prison.”
She added: “I am not overstating this, having been a victim of this myself,” she continued. “They are out for blood and the reason they have to destroy him is that Donald Trump is an alien organism that has been injected into the body politic by the American people to reform it.”
Yes, there are plenty of people out to derail Trump’s policies and delegitimze his presidency — but no, the report about Crowley putting her name on other people’s work has not been debunked. To claim otherwise is a lie. CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski, who wrote the initial article citing plagiarism, called Crowley’s response “complete B.S.” in a tweet on Wednesday.
“Monica Crowley falsely claims our reporting on her (extensive) plagiarism was debunked. nonsense,” he wrote.
Previously he had called Chu’s conclusion “ridiculous.”
Maybe Crowley’s comparison of herself to Flynn and Sessions are not so far off — they are liars, too.
Flynn was forced to resign as Trump’s national security adviser after he was caught lying to Vice President Pence about his contact with Russian officials. Sessions has recused himself from investigations concerning the Trump’s ties to Russia — because he privately met with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. office last fall in his office — but lied about the meeting during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Like them, Crowley is not telling the truth. She would have been perfect for the Trump White House. She would have done bigly. The drama anthology focuses on questionable labor practices found at a North Carolina farm by a man (returnee Benito Martinez, right) seeking his missing son.
Freeform’s toprated sitcom returns for Season 6, opening three months after the fifth season finale. Ben (JeanLuc Bilodeau) is still obsessively searching for Elle (guest star Katie Gill), his elusive dream girl. Tucker (Tahj Mowry) is also back from Los Angeles. “Making a Murderer” and other truecrime shows take swipes from this new sitcom, casting John Lithgow as a Southern professor who’s the chief suspect in his wife’s murder. Nicholas D’Agosto (“Gotham,” left) also stars. Another episode follows.