Kamala Harris is accused of plagiarism in her 2009 co-authored book on criminal justice reform

WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris is facing plagiarism allegations after numerous passages from the Democratic presidential candidate’s 2009 book “Smart on Crime” were found to closely resemble, or even perfectly match, language from other sources.

Harris, then San Francisco’s district attorney, co-wrote the book with ghostwriter Joan O’C and advocated a reform-minded approach to prosecuting crimes. Hamilton — who, when contacted by The Post on Monday, told her she was surprised to learn of the alleged impersonation.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo published the allegations on Monday, citing an investigation by Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber – Rufo posted screenshots of five examples on X in which the wording in the book closely resembles other sources.

In any case, the alleged source material predates Harris’ book publication.

The five juxtaposed passages suggest that Harris may have used language from a 2008 Associated Press article, a 2008 Wikipedia article, a 2000 Bureau of Justice Assistance report, a 2000 Urban report Institute from 2004 and a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release describing a 2007 award.

In at least two cases, the source of the original wording is cited in footnotes – but the apparently copied words are not placed in quotation marks, and in other cases, passages appear to be completely ignored, such as in the Urban Institute report.

“Oh God,” Harris’ ghostwriter told The Post by phone shortly after the allegations were made public.

“I didn’t see anything,” she added. “I’m afraid I can’t talk to you right now, but I’m in the middle of something. Let me try to figure this out.”

A report compiled by Weber and published by Rufo stated that numerous other problems were found in the book.

“Kamala Harris invented a citation and invented a non-existent page number. Goodwill Industries’ self-promotional content was copied verbatim without crediting the source (Goodwill Industries was their “main partner” in 2010). [sic] the “Back on Track” program,” Weber wrote.

“In many other cases, even when a source was cited with a footnote, the text was copied directly and pasted without quotation marks. Quotation marks would have been the most transparent and honest approach even in non-scientific books. Further signs of dishonesty may become apparent when sources are copied but certain details are changed, such as replacing a Subway store owner with a sandwich shop clerk (p. 124) or highlighting Southeast Asia in the context of the US gang problem (p. 184). ).”

Harris campaign spokesman James Singer said: “This is a book that has been published for 15 years, and the vice president has clearly cited sources and statistics throughout the footnotes and endnotes.”

Accusations of plagiarism are often fatal to the careers of journalists and academics, but politicians have weathered similar controversies in the past – most notably outgoing President Biden, who plagiarized a paper in his first year of law school and misappropriated it during his 1987 presidential run Public statements by British politician Neil Kinnock.