Kamala Harris is facing more plagiarism allegations, this time not only the book
Kamala Harris faces plagiarism allegations over her 2007 congressional testimony, with 80% of her text reportedly identical to a former colleague's
Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris has found herself at the centre of a plagiarism controversy, with more and more allegations surfacing about her past work, including testimony she gave during her tenure as a US senator.
The Washington Free Beacon's analysis suggests Harris is accused of lifting large portions of text from a former colleague for use in written congressional testimony she delivered in 2007.
The testimony in question was in support of the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007, a bill aimed at helping state and federal prosecutors with student loan repayment in an effort to retain talented lawyers in public service. Harris, who was a career prosecutor before running for political office, had a personal interest in the proposal. However, it appears that her written statement, which was submitted to the House Judiciary Committee, mirrored text provided by Paul Logli, a District Attorney from Winnebago County, Illinois.
Of the 1,500 words in Harris' testimony, 80 per cent were reportedly identical to Logli’s submission. “Joe Biden, Rand Paul, Melania Trump, and Ben Carson have each endured their own plagiarism scandals. Like Harris, Carson was even accused of plagiarizing in Congressional testimony, though that allegation only involved two paragraphs, not 1,200 words,” noted the Free Beacon. The report suggests this could be due to sloppy staff work, but the implications of plagiarism are serious.
Plagiarism scandals have derailed political careers in the past
President Joe Biden’s first presidential campaign in 1987 was halted after accusations surfaced that he had copied a speech from a British politician.
This latest controversy follows another recent scandal involving Harris’ claim that she worked at McDonald's “while she got her degree.”. She has also faced accusations of plagiarism “at least 12 sections of her book” Smart on Crime.
In October, ‘Plagiarism Hunter’ Christopher Rufo revealed that Harris had copied several blocks of text in her book without proper attribution, including Wikipedia, Goodwill Industries, and a report from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “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,” he said.
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“There is nothing smart about plagiarism, which is the equivalent of an academic crime.” He has called for Harris and her publisher to retract the plagiarized sections of the book and issue corrections.
