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NYT Forced To Admit Kamala Plagiarism Scandal “More Serious” After Expert Finishes Review

The “full analysis” of plagiarism allegations against Kamala Harris has been completed, and the verdict is in: as far as plagiarism consultant Jonathan Bailey is concerned, it’s bad; far worse than the NYT originally reported.

According to Bailey’s own explanation and the New York Time’s own reporting of the final results of Bailey’s work, the original assessment was based on Bailey’s “initial reaction” before examining all the material.

Bailey was entirely unaware of a “full dossier” of information regarding the allegations that Kamala plagiarized entire sections of her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime”, when he made his “initial reaction” known to the NYT’s, according to a report in the New York Post.  

“At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my ‘initial reaction’ to those allegations, not a complete analysis,” Bailey wrote on Plagiarism Today Wednesday. “Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018.”

“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 maliciousintent to defraud,” he added.

“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,” he said.

While Bailey continued to argue the examples were more akin to sloppy work or negligence rather than malice from Harris, he conceded that some, specifically two paragraphs copied directly from Wikipedia, were clear examples of plagiarism.

Even before Bailey was able to complete his full investigation into the plagiarism claims, Christopher Rufo was already sounding the alarm that Kamala’s book was filled with more serious forms of plagiarism.  In a writeup on his own webpage on Monday, Rufo pointed out that even if a ghostwriter had been relied upon, that still would not exonerate Kamala or negate her responsibility in the matter.

Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism. 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.

Of course, Harris, like many other public figures, may have relied entirely on a ghostwriter to draft her book. But that is not exculpatory: Harris, at the end of the day, put her name on the cover.

On that point, one might recall the title of her book: Smart on Crime. There is nothing smart about plagiarism, which is the equivalent of an academic crime. The publisher, as well as the sitting vice president, should retract the plagiarized passages and issue a correction. There should be a single standard—and Kamala Harris is falling short.

Christopher Rufo apparently has his ear to the patterns in these sort of things even beyond the plagiarism aspect.  On Monday, after a CNN report came out which leaned towards emphasizing the more serious nature of Kamala’s plagiarism, Rufo shared that story on X — and basically predicted the final outcome of this story, days before the NYT admitted that it was more serious than they originally reported.

I doubt Rufo is a prophet, but that just shows you how predictable the institutions and the playbooks are that are often used in dealing with scenarios that might paint their own “darlings” in a bad light.  I have to wonder — are we reading the same NYT admissions today… if Kamala doesn’t bomb her Fox News interview with Bret Baier yesterday?

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JD Vance was on the trail of this smoldering dumpster fire before the NYT’s came clean as well, sharing Rufo’s insights in a post and using the moment to contrast the difference between his own book writing experience and that of Kamala.

I am resisting the urge to insert another Joe Rogan reaction video here, but I feel like I’ve already reached my quota for today — so I’ll continue resisting.

Today’s shift in the NYT’s attitude towards Kamala’s plagiarism can not solely be credited to their consultant’s “finished” work — at least I’m not buying that.  After all, in Bailey’s explanation on Plagiarism Today’s website (yes, there is a Plagiarism Today website!), he begins his explanation by bringing up Rufo’s article from Monday!

You’re telling me that wasn’t a primary point of motivation to fess up that things were a little worse than you originally let on?  I would say so.  Of course Rufo’s article is filled with explanations to deflect from that accusation.

Yesterday, Christopher Rufo published an article accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of plagiarizing her 2009 book Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. In his article, he cited five passages in the book that bore strong similarities to earlier works.

That day, the New York Times called me and asked me to examine those five publicly available passages. I studied the passages and found that they were indicators of poor writing processes but did not make up a large portion of the work. As such, while I agree that the passages represent plagiarism and are issues that need to be addressed, they are relatively minor as far as plagiarism goes.

At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my “initial reaction” to those allegations, not a complete analysis.

Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018. (Emphasis Added.)

Bailey all but admitted the NYT’s withheld “an entire dossier” of selected pieces from Kamala’s book — they did not simply hand him the book and say “review this”, apparently.  Which means they curated select sections, gave them to their expert plagiarism reviewer, got the “it’s not that bad” answer that they were expecting from the limited excerpts he was given, and tried to move on!  (Allegedly.)

At the end of Bailey’s article in Plagiarism Today, he gives this synopsis:

Ultimately, I recognize that this view will make absolutely no one happy. I don’t feel that the book is a product of wholesale malicious plagiarism, nor do I think it’s free from problems. No matter your side, this will be an unsatisfactory answer.

However, it’s an excellent example of why I dislike politically motivated plagiarism allegations. I am a staunch believer in examining and discussing plagiarism with nuance, and political cases don’t lend themselves to that.

Everyone wants quick and decisive answers. However, with plagiarism, those answers rarely exist.

That does not read like the expert opinion of an objective consultant to me.  I reads like a politically motivated attempt at putting out fires and getting ahead of bad press.  At any rate, they were forced to fess up — whether because their expert finished his full analysis, or because Christopher Rufo and JD Vance applied the proper pressure — who knows.

I would like to share with you one video report discussing a specific section of the book that Kamala didn’t steal from Wikipedia, but apparently took directly from Martin Luther King Jr’s story from his childhood… and pretended that it was her story!

I’m sorry — anyone who would arrogantly fill her entire book with stories from other people, facts and figures lifted from something as flimsy as Wikipedia, and even then ALTER many of those facts and figures so that they more fully fit the narrative she wanted to paint — that person is truly unfit for elected office… anywhere.  That person is particularly unfit for the Presidency of the United States of America.  And quite honestly, I don’t even think that person is fit for leadership of any kind.

There is a thing known as integrity that sits foundationally at the heart of these matters.  Kamala Harris has none.  And what’s even worse, she pretends as if she has a monopoly on integrity, and all her political opponents are sorely lacking.  Sounds like a clear case of “projecting” to me.  But don’t quote me on that, at least not without proper citation.  That would be plagiarism.


 

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