Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is under fire after plagiarizing large sections of one of her books, including entire passages lifted directly from Wikipedia. The investigation, conducted by internationally famed ‘plagiarism hunter’ Dr. Stefan Weber, revealed at least a dozen passages copied from other sources. Independent journalist Chris Rufo reported on the story Monday and said the violations were comparable to those of disgraced Harvard University president Claudine Gay.
“They not only lifted material from sources without proper attribution but, in at least one case, relied on a low-quality source, which potentially undermined the accuracy of their conclusion,” Rufo wrote, referring to Harris and her co-author.
The charges relate to Harris’ 2009 book Smart on Crime, in which she advocates criminal justice reform. The book was published during Harris’ bid for California Attorney General.
Sources that Harris lifted material from include news articles, press releases, Wikipedia, and even the websites of some nonprofit groups.
“Kamala Harris copied virtually an entire Wikipedia article into her book without providing attribution to Wikipedia.” Weber wrote that following his investigation, “Harris fabricated a source reference, inventing a nonexistent page number.”
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In another section of the book, Harris, without proper attribution, reproduced extensive sections from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release. She and her co-author passed off the language as their own, copying multiple paragraphs virtually verbatim. Here is the… pic.twitter.com/9FpsxQE8Sz
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
The New York Times later picked up the story, but not for the current Vice President’s integrity violations. Instead, the newspaper ran with the headline “Conservative Activist Seizes on Passages From Harris Book.”
The Times instead downplayed Harris’ plagiarism, citing expert opinion that her violations were not considered “the most serious form of plagiarism.”
“In a review of the book, The New York Times found that none of the passages in question took the ideas or thoughts of another writer, which is considered the most serious form of plagiarism,” the paper said. “Instead, the sentences copy descriptions of programs or statistical information that appear elsewhere.”
“This amount of plagiarism amounts to an error and not an intent to defraud,” he said, adding that Mr. Rufo had taken relatively minor citation mistakes in a large amount of text and tried to “make a big deal of it.”
The Times also cited plagiarism consultant Jonathan Bailey, who said in an interview, “The amount of plagiarism amounts to an error and not an intent to defraud,” before accusing Rufo of singling out minor errors to “make a big deal of it.”
Following the publication of his comments, however, Bailey admitted on his X account that he had not fully analyzed the book.
“I want to be clear that I have NOT performed a full analysis of the book. My quotes were based on information provided to me by the reporters and spoke only about those passages,” Bailey said.
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BREAKING: CNN confirms my reporting that Kamala Harris plagiarized her book, Smart on Crime.
This is exactly how it worked with Claudine Gay: the NYT tried to obfuscate; CNN told the truth; other publications followed. Eventually, even the NYT admitted that it was plagiarism. pic.twitter.com/msa1PpwZaY
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024
“The New York Times provided its ‘plagiarism expert’ with only five plagiarized passages—in other words, it deliberately withheld more than a dozen of the accusations in an attempt to manipulate the expert and run interference for Kamala Harris,” Rufo later fired back on X. “This is pure corruption.”
In September, the New York Times editorial board endorsed Harris in the 2024 Presidential election. The paper called her “the only patriotic choice for President.”
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