Well, here we go again. Back in 1987, then-Senator Joe Biden found himself in hot water and was forced to bow out of the 1988 Democratic presidential primary thanks to a plagiarism scandal that shook his campaign. Fast forward nearly four decades, and now his vice president, Kamala Harris, seems to be following in his footsteps—this time with her own plagiarism controversy.
The accusations are piling up, thanks to conservative commentator and leading Critical Race Theory critic Christopher Rufo. In a rather explosive revelation, Rufo claims that Harris “plagiarized at least a dozen sections” of her 2009 book Smart on Crime, which she co-authored while serving as San Francisco’s district attorney. And like any good whistleblower, Rufo didn’t stop at accusations—he came armed with what he calls “the receipts.” In a Twitter/X thread, Rufo provided detailed examples of the alleged plagiarism, leaving little room for ambiguity.
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. 🧵
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
Apparently, Harris is no stranger to accusations of lifting others’ words. This isn’t even the first time she’s been accused of plagiarism—she’s faced criticism for allegedly copying Martin Luther King Jr. in the past. And if you’ve been following the news, this might remind you of another recent scandal. Rufo previously exposed that former Harvard president Claudine Gay had plagiarized sections of her Ph.D. thesis. That revelation led to Gay’s resignation in late 2023, just weeks after Rufo broke the story.
Of course, the million-dollar question now is: Will the mainstream media (MSM) actually run with this story? Will they dig into it the way they would if it were, say, a Republican caught in the crosshairs? Don’t hold your breath. It’s not like the media has been chomping at the bit to scrutinize their favorite Democratic darling. GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance has already commented on the allegations, but whether it gains traction in the media is anyone’s guess.
The accusations themselves are pretty damning. Austrian professor Stefan Weber, known for his work exposing academic fraud, claims he found 27 instances where Harris and her co-author allegedly committed some form of plagiarism in Smart on Crime. According to Weber, 24 of these were lifted from other authors, while three were what he calls “self-plagiarism,” which means they recycled content from their own previous work.
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… pic.twitter.com/P9DTpZS4kV
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
Rufo points out that in many cases, Harris and her co-author didn’t even bother with proper citation or quotation marks, essentially copying and pasting long passages from other sources. That’s a big no-no in the world of publishing, where the rules on plagiarism are crystal clear.
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… pic.twitter.com/qrwHE8AAgk
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
Fox News Digital has independently verified the plagiarism claims, finding verbatim and near-verbatim excerpts from sources like NBC News, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Wikipedia, and a Bureau of Justice Assistance report. So, this isn’t just a case of nitpicking footnotes—this is a wholesale lifting of material without proper credit.
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: pic.twitter.com/pZv5mD3m5t
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
There are plenty more examples where those came from. VP candidate JD Vance weighed in, saying:
Hi, I’m JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia. https://t.co/tkZvK8LrI3
— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 14, 2024
With the election just weeks away and the race between Harris and former President Trump neck-and-neck in key swing states, this scandal might end up being a bigger issue than the Harris camp would like to admit. After all, a plagiarism scandal took out Joe Biden before, and it just might be history repeating itself for his running mate. Will voters care? Well, we’ll find out soon enough.
