During an appearance on The Bernie and Sid Show this morning, Sheriff David Clarke fired back again at CNN for the report this past weekend about apparent plagiarism in his 2013 master’s thesis on homeland security.

The report from CNN’s KFile found that “Clarke lifts language from sources and credits them with a footnote, but does not indicate with quotation marks that he is taking the words verbatim.”

The Naval Postgraduate School said in a statement they would be conducting a review of the matter.

Clarke, who said last week he had accepted a job in the Department of Homeland Security, responded by slamming CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski on Twitter:

This @CNN hack @KFILE oppo research MO is to accuse plagiarism. I’m next. Did it to Rand Paul, Monica Crowley et al. https://t.co/KgoHKermpe — David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 20, 2017

Ample evidence of my previous tweet on @CNN political hack @KFILE. Guy is a sleaze bag. I’m on to him folks. https://t.co/D1kV8kg80G — David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 20, 2017

I just sayin’. This “hired gun” Kaczynski did the same with me”. Do I need to put that in quotation marks? https://t.co/aLxC3OCevQ — David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) May 21, 2017

On The Bernie and Sid Show today, Clarke said, “This is a political smear. That’s all this is. This is designed to intimidate me, it’s designed to try and weaken the confidence President Trump has in me.”

(In a separate interview flagged by CNN today, Clarke said he’s not sure whether this report will affect his chances at serving in the Trump administration.)

He called this a “character assassination attempt by some 2-bit college dropout,” referring to Kaczynski. (A piece on Independent Journal Review highlighted this as well yesterday, though their report ended up being edited and updated after getting Twitter backlash.)

Kaczynski initially responded to Clarke’s pushback on Sunday:

Clarke has not responded to our story yet, but did RT this: pic.twitter.com/QluYYFr4K4 — andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) May 21, 2017

Here’s a good rundown from history professor at Case on seriousness of Clarke’s plagiarism https://t.co/2yHPtynQTp — andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) May 21, 2017

A response from Clarke defenders is “he just didn’t use quotation marks” but that’s not what much of the work is https://t.co/jrRnB0CIGJ — andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) May 21, 2017

Copy analysis, descriptions, etc. are not things you can defend this way as pic.twitter.com/sFMD1QtOxX — andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) May 21, 2017

@SheriffClarke @journalsentinel It should be noted Clarke’s spokeswoman statement is inaccurate, as school guidelines specifically forbid what Clarke did. pic.twitter.com/zO0JQwP4uo — andrew kaczynski ? (@KFILE) May 21, 2017

Clarke said today that “maybe from a formatting standpoint, the thesis isn’t perfect, but the content is there,” and he again noted how he’s not the first person to be the target of “these hired guns.”

He cited past examples of similar plagiarism reporting by Kaczynski and KFile against Rand Paul, Ben Carson, and Monica Crowley.

Both Paul and Carson admitted fault and said they would take steps to address the matter going forward. After the report about Crowley plagiarizing came out months ago, Crowley said in a statement that she would “not be taking a position in the incoming administration.” (She subsequently said this was a “political hit job” and claimed it had been debunked.)

You can listen to the audio above, via The Bernie and Sid Show.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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