Sheriff Clarke unsure of Trump appointment after plagiarism claims

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

Although Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke had been reported to be up for a position at the Department of Homeland Security, that job might be in jeopardy after recent reports that Clarke plagiarized portions of his master’s thesis.

A CNN KFile review of Clarke’s 2013 master’s thesis found several instances in which Clarke had quoted verbatim from sources he cited without using quotation marks to indicate that he was using exact words from the sources.

After the review, Clarke said on a radio interview with Joe Pags that aired on Monday that “time will tell” whether or not he will still be welcome in the Trump administration after the plagiarism charges.

— Sheriff Clarke slammed for plagiarizing part of his master’s thesis — 

“This is about weakening, like I said, the support that I give and that I have with President Donald Trump and Secretary Kelly, it’s to weaken their resolve to hang in there with me,” Clarke said. “Will it be successful? It might, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over that.”

Asked directly if the thesis drama would affect his hiring, Clarke replied, “Who knows? I say that sincerely, because I’m in a political environment, sometimes political decisions are made, President Donald Trump has to do what’s in the best interest of his administration. And they’ve cut people loose before, I don’t know why, so time will tell, but I know that he values loyalty.”

As for the thesis itself, Clarke claimed that since he cited the sources, it was not a case of plagiarism but bad editing. “They’re saying certain words and phrases I should have put quotation marks around. OK, alright, fine. Maybe from a formatting standpoint the thesis isn’t perfect, but the content is there,” he said.

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