Conservative pundit Monica Crowley, who backed out of a White House national security job following allegations of plagiarism, is now lobbying on behalf of Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, recently filed paperwork suggests.
Crowley disclosed her consultant work of providing part-time “outreach services” on behalf of Pinchuk, a major donor to President Donald Trump’s charity, the Trump Foundation, in a registration statement filed late last week with the U.S. Department of Justice, LegiStorm reported Tuesday.
Such outreach services, the form noted, “will include inviting government officials and other policymakers to attend conferences and meetings, such as the annual Munich Security Conference, to engage in learning and dialog regarding issues of concern to Mr. Pinchuk.”
The Ukrainian steel magnate’s foundation gave a reported $150,000 to the Trump Foundation in 2015, according to the Washington Post’s review of the charity’s tax filing.
A spokesman for Pinchuk’s foundation told the newspaper that money was donated as part of an agreement for Trump to speak via video to the Yalta European Strategy conference in September 2015.
Pinchuk had also pledged donations to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state, the Post noted.
Crowley announced in mid-January that she would not assume a senior foreign policy communications role in Trump’s administration, saying she instead “decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities,” Politico reported at the time.
The Republican strategist, who had been tapped for the role of senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council, made the announcement amidst pushback she faced over allegations that she plagiarized portions of her 2012 book, “What the (Bleep) Just Happened” and her 2000 Ph.D dissertation.
Crowley, during an early March appearance on Fox News, however, dismissed such allegations as a “despicable, straight-up political hit job.”
“It’s been debunked, my editor has completely supported me and backed me up,” she said. “There is a very toxic and it’s getting increasingly toxic and poisonous atmosphere of personal destruction in Washington and the media … and this is exactly why smart and good people do not want to go into government service.”
