A book by a close ally of incoming US president Donald Trump has been withdrawn by publisher HarperCollins after accusations of plagiarism.

Digital editions of Monica Crowley’s What the (Bleep) Just Happened were pulled from sale overnight amid accusations that Trump’s choice for a high-profile national security role had plagiarised large parts of her 2012 text.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Rupert Murdoch-owned publishing house glossed over the accusations, saying it had withdrawn the book because it had “reached the end of its natural sales cycle”. But it added the title would become available at “such time as the author has the opportunity to source and revise the material”.

Fifty examples of alleged plagiarism from multiple sources were revealed by broadcaster CNN KFile, including that Crowley had lifted sections on Keynesian economics from the website Investopedia; and on torture from a Fox news article. It also showed details of “pork-barrel” spending items she had claimed were part of outgoing president Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, which were said to have come from a conservative podiatrist’s website and to date back to 2004. Other alleged sources included Wikipedia, Yahoo News and The Wall Street Journal.

A conservative columnist, radio talkshow host and Fox News personality, Crowley has been picked by Trump as senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.



It is not her only brush with plagiarism claims. On Saturday, Politico magazine published sections of her PhD dissertation, which it alleged had plagiarised a series of academic texts without citation.

When the allegations about What the (Bleep) Just Happened first broke, Crowley received support from the president-elect’s office, with a spokesperson dismissing the claims as being no more than “a politically motivated attack”. No further statement has been made.

The book was published by HarperCollins’s conservative imprint Broadside Books. It offered a conservative critique of Barack Obama’s policies and sold about 20,000 copies, according to Publishers Marketplace.

It is the latest controversy to embroil US publishing, as traditionally liberal presses court conservative darlings with offers of lucrative book deals. Earlier this month, Simon & Schuster was plunged into a row over its decision to pay rightwing personality Milo Yiannopoulos $250,000 (£203,000) for his memoir Dangerous, due out in March.

According to Slate.com, the deal was offered after the Brietbart technology editor’s book was turned down elsewhere. While Yiannopoulos has claimed the book was cooked up over lunch with an editor from Simon & Schuster, Slate reported the provocateur’s memoir was rejected because of a perception among publishers that he had failed to prove his controversial antics were anything more than headline-grabbing stunts. As a result, there were doubts Yiannopoulos could sustain a whole book.

One editor told Slate that Yiannopoulos’s apparent lack of an underpinning and coherent philosophy was a problem. “He’s used the cloak of ‘I’m anti-PC’, he finds different little phrases to justify his behaviour, but … to pose as a provocateur as if it’s a political stance. That’s bullshit.”