BUSTED: Kamala Harris accused of plagiarism throughout book about solving crime

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In 2009, Kamala Harris, along with co-author Joan O’C Hamilton, published a book titled, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.”

A description on Amazon reads, “Harris shatters the old distinctions rooted in false choices and myths. She presents practical solutions for making the criminal justice system truly—not just rhetorically—tough. Smart on Crime spells out the policy shifts required to increase public safety, reduce costs, and strengthen our communities.”

One review on the Amazon listing states, “Like a lot of books written by politicians, this book is basically written at a third grade level. That’s a little frustrating, given how intelligent Harris is. After a reasonably strong start — which details how Harris was influenced by her social scientists parents — the book suffers from organizational problems, as if the ghost writer was just sort of slapping chapters together.”

Now, a new 49-page report by Dr. Stefan Weber, an Austrian “plagiarism hunter,” reveals that chapters were indeed “slapped together,” as much of it was plagiarized, including several long passages copied straight from Wikipedia. According to Weber, the book includes 27 instances of plagiarism.

In his report, Weber wrote, “My credo always was: If you think you have to say so much that it is worth an entire book, please say it in your own words. If not, please cite correctly. But Kamala Harris did plagiarize a section from a Wikipedia article and obviously also faked a childhood story which she ‘borrowed’ from Martin Luther King.”

Journalist Christopher Rufo, of the City Journal, reported on the story on Monday, and shared details in a series of social media posts, as follows:

EXCLUSIVE: Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book, Smart on Crime, according to a new investigation. The current vice president even lifted material from Wikipedia.

We have the receipts. 🧵

The investigation was conducted by Dr. Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world. We independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard president Claudine Gay’s doctoral thesis.

We can begin with a passage in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited AP/NBC News report:

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 excerpt, with abbreviations, such as percentages and state names, treated as verbatim substitutions:

In a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipedia—long considered an unreliable source. She not only assumes the online encyclopedia’s accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source. Here is Harris’s language, based on the page as it appeared in December 2008, before she published the book:

Harris also copied language from a Bureau of Justice Assistance report report, which was linked in the the Wikipedia entry. Here is the passage in Harris’s book, with duplicated material in the other column:

Finally, when attempting to write a description of a nonprofit group, Harris simply lifted promotional language from an Urban Institute report, and failed to cite her source:

Read the full story about Kamala Harris’s plagiarism problem exclusively at my newsletter:

New York Time attempts to downplay plagiarism in Harris’ book

The New York Times then published a report on the plagiarism allegations, claimed there were only five passages that were plagiarized, and said none of it was anything serious. The Times wrote:

Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism consultant in New Orleans and the publisher of Plagiarism Today, said on Monday that his initial reaction to Mr. Rufo’s claims was that the errors were not serious, given the size of the document.

Now, Bailey is speaking out, saying the Times only gave him five passages to review.  He wrote, “For those coming here from the NY Times Article. 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.”

Rufo responded, “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. This is pure corruption.”

Bailey added, “I’ve been out of the office today for the holiday and have not been able to follow the coverage. When I’ve had more time, I’ll likely have more thoughts. I’d expect something tomorrow or Wednesday on the site depending on client work.”

Rufo replied, “My team will send you the full dossier with more than a dozen of the accusations. The New York Times was dishonest with you. Even CNN confirms that it is absolutely plagiarism. It’s not too late to salvage your reputation and tell the truth. Set the record straight.”

The New York Times accuses Rufo of being racist for reporting the plagiarism

The Times wrote, “Mr. Rufo is part of a loose confederation of conservative writers and activists who, during the past year, have tried to expose plagiarism among academics, many of whom have been Black scholars who work in the field of diversity and inclusion.”

Rufo slammed the New York Times, writing, “Somebody hang this in the Louvre. The New York Times claims that I “seize[d] on” Kamala Harris’s serial plagiarism. Admits later in the story that it is, in fact, plagiarism. And then calls noticing that fact “racist.””

Social media is abuzz over the news that Harris “wrote” a book filled with plagiarism.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), former President Donald Trump’s running mate, pounced on the story and wrote in a social media post, “Lmao Kamala didn’t even write her own book!”

In another post, Vance wrote, “Hi, I’m JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia.”

Then he added: “Cue the corporate media “fact checkers”: “Vance’s tweet is missing important context. Kamala Harris only copied some of her book from Wikipedia.””

“Oh oh. Like everything else about Kamala Harris it seems her book is fake too,” mocked Donald Trump Jr.

More responses below….

Below is a clip from an interview Harris gave on the Today Show in 2009, promoting her new book.  One of the crimes she touted going after is elementary school truancy.

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