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Mnuchin Plans to Hire Fox’s Monica Crowley as Spokeswoman, Sources Say

Mnuchin Is Said to Plan to Hire Fox Commentator as Spokeswoman

(Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin plans to hire a regular Fox News guest, Monica Crowley, as his top spokeswoman, according to people familiar with the matter, as he seeks to tout the GOP’s tax cuts and navigate Democrats’ demands for the president’s tax returns.

Crowley will be assistant secretary for public affairs, replacing Tony Sayegh, who departs at the end of May after more than two years with Mnuchin, the people said. Crowley and a Treasury spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

President Donald Trump planned to appoint Crowley to a position at the National Security Council in his White House, but she withdrew from consideration in January 2017 after CNN reported that she had plagiarized portions of her 2012 book and Politico reported that she had plagiarized portions of her 2000 Ph.D. thesis. Crowley said in a Fox News interview that the reports were a “political hit job.”

She is also a former foreign agent. Crowley registered with the Justice Department in March 2017 to work with a Democratic political consultant, Doug Schoen, who represented Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk. She terminated her relationship with Pinchuk on Feb. 1, 2018, according to a document Schoen filed.

Crowley’s only job for Pinchuk was to help him arrange his annual Yalta European Strategy conference, a person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg News. Speakers at the event in Kiev that year, known as the YES conference, included former Secretary of State John Kerry; John Bolton, before he was appointed Trump’s national security adviser; the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; economist Paul Krugman and other Americans.

White House and Treasury Department officials are aware of Crowley’s work for Pinchuk, the person said. The person asked not to be identified because Crowley’s appointment hasn’t been announced.

Democrats are seeking Trump’s tax returns from the Treasury Department. In response to an April 3 request from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, Mnuchin wrote that the department would seek a legal opinion from the Justice Department. Neal’s response on Saturday gave a new deadline of April 23 before his committee would potentially resort to further legal options.

To contact the reporters on this story: Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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