John Fauber

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., who said last week that he would take a job in the Department of Homeland Security, plagiarized portions of his master's thesis on homeland security, according to a report on CNN Saturday night.

Clarke, who said he will be joining President Donald Trump’s administration as an assistant secretary in the DHS, failed to properly attribute sources at least 47 times, the CNN story said.

“In all instances reviewed by CNN's KFILE, 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 story said.

RELATED:Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke says he's taking job in Department of Homeland Security

OPINION:Clarke's departure will be good for department and Milwaukee County REAL TIME

OPINION:Actually, Clarke isn't a good fit to be sheriff or work in Homeland Security

Clarke earned a master's degree in security studies in 2013 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

CNN said guidelines on plagiarism posted on the Naval Postgraduate School's website say: "If a passage is quoted verbatim, it must be set off with quotation marks (or, if it is a longer passage, presented as indented text), and followed by a properly formulated citation. The length of the phrase does not matter. If someone else's words are sufficiently significant to be worth quoting, then accurate quotation followed by a correct citation is essential, even if only a few words are involved."

Clarke immediately took to Twitter to attack the report, saying it was the reporter's "MO" to "accuse plagiarism. I'm next."

“Guy is a sleaze bag'" he tweeted. "I'm on to him folks.”

"Only someone with a political agenda would say this is plagiarism," Clarke said in an email to the Journal Sentinel late Saturday.

Fran McLaughlin, Clarke's public information officer at the Sheriff's Department, said CNN has an agenda and a bias.

She said the school has a system for doing papers and Clarke followed it.

CNN KFILE reporter Andrew Kaczynski went on the network Saturday night to defend the story.

“What we found time and again,” he said, was copying of paragraphs by Clarke without properly using quotation marks.

Late Saturday night, the Naval Postgraduate School removed Clarke's thesis from its website and replaced it with the following note:

"This item was removed from view at the discretion of the Naval Postgraduate School."

Clarke, who campaigned around the country as a surrogate for President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that he would leave office next month to become an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In a tweet later that day, however, the department said appointments are official when they are announced by the secretary and no announcement was made Wednesday or since then.

Clarke, a conservative who runs as a Democrat, has been elected four times.

He has a loyal national, right-wing following, but has been widely criticized locally for his inflammatory rhetoric and for spending so much time on the road as a Trump surrogate and while giving talks to conservative groups.

RELATED:As inmate died of dehydration, Milwaukee jail staff also failed to monitor suicidal inmate

RELATED:Inquest jury into inmate's dehydration death recommends charges against 7 jail employees

POLITIFACT:David A. Clarke Jr.'s file

RELATED:Ongoing coverage of Clarke