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After DeVos' confirmation hearing was limited to one round of questions by Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Democrats submitted hundreds of questions to the nominee. In response to a question from Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the committee, on bullying of LGBT students, DeVos almost directly -- and uncited -- quoted Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of Obama's Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.

The questions -- which totaled over 1,000 -- were answered in DeVos' name, but it's unclear what role aides and staffers played in answering the queries.

"Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment where they can learn, thrive, and grow," DeVos writes.

Gupta was credited with nearly the same quotes in a May 2016 press release on ensuring the civil rights of transgender students.

"Every child deserves to attend school in a safe, supportive environment that allows them to thrive and grow," Gupta wrote.

The apparent plagiarism was first reported by The Washington Post.

Trump education adviser Rob Goad described the plagiarism allegations as "character assassination."

"To level an accusation against her about these words included in responses to nearly 1,400 questions -- 139 alone from the ranking member -- is simply a desperate attempt to discredit Betsy DeVos, who will serve the Department of Education and our nation's children with distinction if confirmed," said Goad, who sits on the White House Domestic Policy Council.

In another instance, DeVos' appears to have lifted language from the Department of Education website.

"Opening a complaint for investigation in no way implies that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has made a determination about the merits of the complaint," DeVos wrote in response to a question about publishing the list of schools under Title IX investigations.

DeVos is one of a handful of Trump cabinet nominees that Senate Democrats believe they have a chance of upending.

In the hearing earlier this month, DeVos agreed that Trump described sexual assault in a leaked hot mic video from a 2005 entertainment show and turned a discussion of guns in schools turned on grizzly bears. She also appeared at times unaware of federal law governing education and admitted to a "clerical error" that left her as a vice president on her mother's foundation for nearly two decades.

She is also not the first Trump staffing pick to face plagiarism allegations since the President's election.

Conservative author Monica Crowley stepped away from her appointment to a senior communications role in Trump's then-incoming administration after CNN's KFile uncovered multiple instances of plagiarism.

Examples of plagiarism were found in her 2012 book, multiple columns for The Washington Times and her 2000 Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University. The former Fox New contributor was chosen to be the senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council.

"After much reflection I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming administration," she told the Times in a statement. "I greatly appreciate being asked to be part of President-elect Trump's team and I will continue to enthusiastically support him and his agenda for American renewal."

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Betsy DeVos appears to have plagiarized quotes for Senate questionnaire - CNN

President Trump has earned near-universal condemnation for the excesses of his first week in office, ranging from falsehoods about the size of his inauguration crowd and about millions who supposedly voted illegally for his opponent to the implementation of his slap-dash executive order on immigration. Even immigration restrictionists were aghast at the chaotic way in which the immigration order was handled.

While White House spokesmen ridiculously claim that everything couldnt be better, the presidents more thoughtful conservative admirers have invoked a more subtle and slightly more plausible defense: They claim that the media are practicing a double standard by holding Trump to account after not having done so for Obama. In other words, they are trying to deflect from Trumps sins by citing the shortcomings of his predecessor.

Does Trump tell whoppers, they ask? Sure, they will grudgingly admit, but so did Obama. There was what PolitiFact called the Lie of the Year in 2013: If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. Or there was the false narrative that Obamas National Security Councilstaffer Ben Rhodes used to sell the Iran nuclear deal, which included lying about when the negotiations began.

Is Trump giving inadvertent aid and comfort to the enemy with his overly broad immigration edict, which gives the appearance of being animated by anti-Muslim animus? Is he turning his back on Syrians who are victims of civil war? Sure, some of his more honest defenders will acknowledge, but Obama did even worse by doing nothing to stop the slaughter in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of some 500,000 people and by abandoning Iraq in 2011, thus allowing Islamic State to arise. Obamas action, or more precisely inaction, created a rallying cry for Sunni jihadists, as did the general perception, fed by the Iran nuclear deal, that Obama was putting Shiite interests over those of Sunnis.

Is Trump causing widespread consternation with his executive order temporarily barring visitors from seven Muslim countries and indefinitely barring all Syrians? Trump defenders claim, falsely, that Obama did something similar by supposedly stopping all refugees from Iraq for six months in 2011. In reality, the Obama administration only slowed down refugee admissions after a security breach it did not stop them entirely, much less bar all visitors from various countries.

Is Trump needlessly provoking a crisis with Americas third-largest trade partner and neighbor with his demands that Mexico pay for his border wall? The smarter Trump defenders will admit thats the case, while suggesting that Trump is treating Mexico no worse than Obama treated Israel by, for example, refusing to veto an anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations.

Trumps defenders are hardly wrong in noting that the media were besotted with Obama and are not enamored of Trump, and thus they hold the current president to a higher standard than his predecessor. But the charge can also be turned around on Trumps fans: Why are they holding Trump to a lower standard than Obama?

In any case, while a useful rhetorical device, cries of hypocrisy hardly excuse what Trump is doing. While Obama, like all politicians, told his share of falsehoods and made promises he couldnt keep, Trump is a mendacity-producing machine the likes of which we have never seen in the White House. And he repeats falsehoods, such as his claims about the size of his inauguration crowd or the number and effect of illegal voters, even when their lack of factual foundation has been repeatedly exposed and even when, for political purposes, he would be far better advised to let the whole subject drop.

Its true that Obama shamefully turned his back on American security interests in the Middle East, but Trump is making a bad situation far worse with his needlessly provocative language (such as his repeated claims that the U.S. should have stolen Iraqs oil or that torture works ) and his overly broad executive orders on immigration, which play directly into the jihadist assertionthat the West is at war with Islam.

In the end, there simply isnt any comparison between the two. Obama may have been maddeningly cautious and self-righteous, but he was much more thoughtful, dignified and restrained than his bombastic and erratic successor. Obamas presidency was a failure in many respects most especially in the rise of Islamic State and the collapse of Syria into civil war but it did not uproot 70 years of alliances and trade partnerships as Trump threatens to do.

And even if you judge Obama more harshly, lets keep in mind this hoary adage: Two wrongs dont make a right. Conservatives would be well advised to stick to their principles and not become apologists for Trumps excesses if they want to emerge from his presidency with their dignity and integrity intact.

Max Boot is a contributing writer to Opinion and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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C'mon Trumpists Obama's shortcomings are no defense for Trump's excesses - Los Angeles Times

Breaking his silence only 10 days after he left office, former President Barack Obama backed nationwide protests against President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration Monday.

In a strongly worded statement issued through a spokesman, Obama said he was "heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country."

"Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake," he said.

Shortly afterward, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates a holdover from the Obama administration sent a memo to Justice Department lawyers ordering them not to defend the executive order against several legal challenges that were filed over the weekend.

Related: Acting Attorney General Bars Justice Department From Defending Trump Immigration Order

The former president rejected Trump's contention Sunday that his executive orders restricting travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries were "similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months."

Obama's statement Monday said: "With regard to comparisons to President Obama's foreign policy decisions, as we've heard before, the President fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion."

Related: Trump Travel Restrictions Spark Immediate Court Challenges

The 2011 order did not ban visas for refugees, who by definition don't travel on visas. It tightened the review process for citizens of Iraq and for refugees from the six other countries, while Trump's is a near-blanket order applying to nearly all residents and citizens of all seven countries.

Former President Barack Obama at a news conference Nov. 16, 2015, at the White House. Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

The statement Monday referred to Obama's remarks in a news conference in November 2015, when he said the "United States has to step up and do its part" to protect and assist refugees.

"When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution that's shameful," Obama said at the time.

Related:

"That's not American. That's not who we are," he said then. "We don't have religious tests to our compassion."

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Obama Rejects Trump Immigration Orders, Backs Protests - NBCNews.com

New York Times

Obama's Protections for LGBT Workers Will Remain Under Trump New York Times A flag appeared during the New York City gay pride parade in June. Credit Bryan R. Smith/Agence France-Presse Getty Images. WASHINGTON The White House said on Monday that President Trump would leave in place a 2014 Obama administration ... and more »

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Obama's Protections for LGBT Workers Will Remain Under Trump - New York Times

The seven countries affected by President Donald Trump's new travel ban are among at least 11 countries where a clandestine U.S. special operations task force is hunting ISIS operatives who could hatch terrorist plots or make their way to the United States as they flee the "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq, counterterrorism officials tell ABC News.

The Counter-External Operations Task Force, or Ex-Ops, was devised by the Obama administration last fall, when thenDefense Secretary Ash Carter quietly announced that he had put America's most covert black ops troops in charge of tracking ISIS fighters moving beyond the boundaries of established war zones in Southwest Asia.

Syria, Iraq and five other countries affected by the Trump executive order last Friday are also the responsibility of Ex-Ops forces under the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), as well as at least four more countries not subject to his order regarding harsher immigration restrictions for foreign travelers Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt officials said.

Trump's White House has compared his executive order with the Obama administration's halting Iraqi refugee admissions almost entirely in 2011 because two al-Qaeda insurgents from Baiji, Iraq, were found to be living in Kentucky and giving support to a weapons smuggling plot in an FBI sting, as ABC News exclusively reported in 2013.

As he did during his presidential campaign, Trump singled out Syria and said granting Syrian refugees entry to the U.S. would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States."

What the Trump White House hasn't disclosed publicly, likely for reasons of operational security, is that "a small number of refugees settled here are under FBI investigation for ties to IED [improvised explosive device] networks overseas," a senior counterterrorism official told ABC News this week.

Trump also has yet to discuss publicly continuing the secret JSOC program focused on the same countries identified in his immigration executive order which began as a program under Obama aimed at preventing ISIS operatives from becoming threats outside the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts.

"The idea is to figure out where they're going, why they're going there, all of their logistics, tie them together and figure out how to empower allies to act on it," a counterterrorism official familiar with the planning for Ex-Ops told ABC News recently.

Besides "squirters" leaving the caliphate military slang for enemies who flee a large U.S. counterterrorism operation the new task force under JSOC commander Army Lt. Gen. Austin "Scotty" Miller is tracking terrorism money trails around the Middle East, Asia and Europe, officials said.

"The big takeaway is to understand why they're doing what they're doing, in order to mitigate it in the future," the counterterrorism official added.

The Obama administration established the 11 countries as U.S.-military-led counterterrorism priorities months before Trump won the 2016 election in November, officials said. The prioritization was based on intelligence on where ISIS operatives have been known to relocate and where major clusters of fighters are gathering, such as in Libya where Obama in his last hours as president approved a massive B-2 stealth bomber airstrike on 100 jihadis who the Pentagon said were plotting attacks on Europe.

Trump last week made it harder for refugees and travelers to lawfully enter the U.S. from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

A senior administration official declined to comment to ABC News about the 11 countries where the special operations task force is focused or about its military priorities in combating ISIS.

In October on a trip to Paris, Carter hinted at the new task force but not its size, scope or authorities, in little-noticed remarks.

"We have put our Joint Special Operations Command in the lead of countering ISIL's external operations. And we have already achieved very significant results both in reducing the flow of foreign fighters and removing ISIL leaders from the battlefield," he said.

Some in counterterrorism operations view the controversy over Trump's move to temporarily halt immigration from seven countries which are either war-torn countries or state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran as ironic, since it focuses on some of the very countries where Obama focused counterterrorism operations for months until he left office.

Though outside the authority of the Ex-Ops task force, last weekend's raid in Yemen by the Navy's SEAL Team Six unit to seize al-Qaeda documents on plots against the West also was an operation planned for months by the Obama administration but launched with Trump's approval once moonlight was minimal and other conditions favorable to American commandos. Several SEALs were critically injured, and one operator, William "Ryan" Owens, was killed in action.

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US Commandos Targeting ISIS in Countries on Obama and Trump Hit List - ABC News