VP Kamala Harris faces plagiarism accusations

Vice President Kamala Harris is facing fresh allegations of plagiarism after her campaign dismissed accusations last week related to her 2009 book about criminal justice reform.
Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo, in a Substack article, alleged that Harris’ book “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer” contains more than a dozen instances of plagiarized content. He referenced a dossier produced by Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber, who found that some the cases of copy-and-pasting were more serious than others.
In a report published Monday, The Washington Free Beacon stated it further discovered a “pattern of plagiarism” in the texts of Harris’ books, popular articles, congressional transcripts, and reports during her tenure as attorney general in California.
In one instance, Harris appears to have lifted most of a statement made in 2007 by Republican district attorney Paul Logli — more than 1,000 words — for a statement she made to Congress on the same legislation a couple of months later. The testimony was in favor of a bill that would establish a loan repayment plan for state and local prosecutors.
Logli told The Telegraph it could have been the staff at the National District Attorneys Association that cut corners.
“If the statements were very alike, I don’t think it’s an act of plagiarism as much as it was a case of relying on staff people who helped write the statement cut and paste,” he said. “They probably cut corners because they were overstretched.”
“They probably should have advised Kamala about what I said before the Senate and they probably should have changed things around, but that’s staff responsibility.”
The article also states that Harris demonstrated similar behavior during the 2024 presidential election, where she pitched her opponent’s campaign promises as her own, including former President Donald Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” and vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance’s $5,000 child tax credit.
Last week, James Singer, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, emailed a statement to The Associated Press, saying, “Right wing operatives are getting desperate as they see the bipartisan coalition of support Vice President Harris is building to win this election, as Trump retreats to a conservative echo chamber refusing to face questions about his lies.”
“This is a book that’s been out for 15 years, and the vice president clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout,” Singer added.
Vance responded to the accusations against Harris in a social media post. “Hi, I’m JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia.” He authored the 2016 “Hillbilly Elegy,” centered around his upbringing in Kentucky and Ohio.
The New York Times asked plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey for his initial reaction last week. He said the issues were “relatively minor,” but his conclusion changed when he examined Weber’s entire dossier of allegations.
“With this new information, while I believe the case is more serious than I commented to The New York Times, the overarching points remain. While there are problems with this work, the pattern points to sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud,” Bailey wrote for his website Plagiarism Today.
“Is it problematic? Yes. But it’s also not the wholesale fraud that many have claimed it to be. It sits somewhere between what the two sides want it to be.”