Crowley withdraws from appointment to Trump administration amid plagiarism allegations

LOS ANGELES - In the face of plagiarism accusations, Monica Crowley announced Monday that she will not be taking a senior position in Donald Trump's upcoming administration.

'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,” she said in a statement to the Washington Post. '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 was Trump's pick for senior director of strategic communications for the White House's National Security Council. She would have reported to Michael T. Flynn, who will be Trump's national security adviser and also released a statement on the news on Monday.

'The NSC will miss the opportunity to have Monica Crowley as part of our team,” said Flynn in the statement.

A CNN report last week hit Crowley with plagiarism accusations regarding her 2012 book 'What the (Bleep) Just Happened?” The article cited dozens of instances where Crowley seemingly pulled from Wikipedia articles, columns, and other books without attribution. In response, HarperCollins halted its sales of the book.

Shortly after the CNN report, Politico published its own about Crowley's 2000 Columbia University Ph.D 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,” finding allegedly plagiarized passages in that essay as well. She had also been previously accused of plagiarizing passages in a 1999 Wall Street Journal article.

Having previously worked with Richard Nixon on a pair of books, Crowley has served as a Fox News commentator and hosted her own radio show.