Princeton, New Jersey - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is at the center of another controversy after a student newspaper at Princeton University accused him of plagiarizing parts of his senior thesis.

A report from the Daily Princetonian says Hegseth plagiarized parts of his 2003 senior thesis, including at least eight examples of nearly identical passages of text.

The allegations come after the student newspaper employed the help of three experts, who claimed that Hegseth's thesis violated Princeton University's academic honesty rules.

One passage from the thesis, which references the moment that former President George W. Bush was informed of the 9/11 terror attacks, is nearly identical to an article published by the Washington Post two years prior.

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While the experts told the Daily Princetonian that the examples uncovered were troubling, some stressed that there was no definitive proof.

When the Daily Princetonian ran the length of Hegseth's thesis through modern plagiarism detection programs, 12 sections were flagged, but only eight of which were considered serious by experts.

"It is plagiarism," academic integrity researcher Guy Curtis told the paper. "Once you get 10 to 15 words in a row by 'accident' that happens to correspond with something else – it's probably not accidental."