William Federer, a prolific author whose works include “America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations,” “Treasury of Presidential Quotations,” “Endangered Speeches” and more, is defending retired surgeon and potential political candidate Ben Carson from a claim of plagiarism.
“In my estimation, he has used my material exactly the way I wanted my material to be used,” Federer told National Review Online.
“The fact that he had cited me 16 times shows that his intention was to be honest and up front in his use of my material and the two times that the BuzzFeed article cited that he had not, in my estimation, is an editor’s oversight, errata, and it’s not plagiarism.”
The claims forwarded by BuzzFeed concerned Carson’s 2012 book, “American the Beautiful.”
“He plagiarizes from two authors whose works he mentions in passing at earlier points in the book: Cleon Skousen, a conservative historian who died in 2006, and Bill Federer, another conservative historian, who Carson thanks in the acknowledgements for helping get his book published,” the report said.
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But even the Buzzfeed report noted that Federer was comfortable with Carson’s use of various material, and the citations included.
“In a phone call, Federer told BuzzFeed News he did not care that Carson had copied from his book,” the report noted. “‘That’s fine,’ said Federer, who noted his book states he grants permission to duplicate text as long as proper attribution is given.”
BuzzFeed also said Carson’s material also came from a “CBS News article, a Liberty Institute press release, a local newspaper article, and various Internet sites.”
Officials for HarperCollins publishing told BuzzFeed, “Alongside the author, we too take these matters very seriously. We have been in contact with the author and agent and will work with them to review the given information. We will respond as appropriate.”
Federer told NRO that he collaborated with Candy Carson, who co-authored the book with her husband, and he read the manuscript after it had gone through several drafts.
In this case, Federer told NRO, “There wasn’t a habit of using somebody else’s thoughts and claiming them as your own.”
He also told NRO he felt “misrepresented” in BuzzFeed “because it portrayed Carson as ‘a low-level plagiarist when this was an honest editor’s error.'”
“Somebody is saying, ‘we want to dig up stuff on Dr. Carson,’ and they can’t find him sleeping around so they pick on his book,” Federer told NRO.
