Conservative activist accuses Harris of plagiarizing passages in co-authored 2009 book

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris has been accused by a conservative activist of plagiarizing passages in a book she co-authored more than a decade ago.

Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, on Monday cited in an online post an analysis by so-called Austrian plagiarism hunter Stefan Weber, alleging Harris lifted “verbatim language” from uncited sources in “Smart on Crime,” which she co-wrote with Joan O’C. Hamilton.

The book – published in 2009, the year before Harris was elected California attorney general – focuses on policy drawing from her experience prosecuting crimes that ranged from child sexual assault to homicide in Alameda County and San Francisco. Rufo, in his post, refers to six specific paragraphs from Harris’ roughly 200-page book.

CNN reviewed several of the passages highlighted by Rufo and found that Harris and O’C. Hamilton failed to properly attribute language to sources.

Plagiarized works include using someone else’s work without giving them proper and appropriate credit for their ideas and words. Even if the source of the information is cited, it is still considered plagiarism if the ideas are not paraphrased or quoted in the correct place, experts told CNN late last year.

In one instance, Harris and O’C. Hamilton appear to have lifted some language from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release without proper attribution. The book copies exact language and sections of the press release but fails to use quotation marks in several sentences, according to an analysis of the book and the press release.

The authors do, however, cite the press release as a source in a footnote next to the text.

They also properly attribute other quotes from parts of the press release.

Rufo also highlighted another example claiming Harris and O’C. Hamilton “lifted language verbatim” from an NBC News report about a 2008 study on low graduation rates in city schools. CNN confirmed that the language is very similar in both the book and the NBC News report.

Haris and O’C. Hamilton cite the study in their book when using the study’s statistics, but do not cite the NBC News article.

The Harris campaign said the Democratic presidential candidate “clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout” the book.

“Rightwing operatives are getting desperate as they see the bipartisan coalition of support Vice President Harris is building to win this election, as Trump retreats to a conservative echo chamber refusing to face questions about his lies. This is a book that’s been out for 15 years, and the Vice President clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout,” said Harris campaign spokesperson James Singer.

Vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance quickly seized on the allegations from the conservative activist, posting on X: “Lmao Kamala didn’t even write her own book!” The Ohio Republican said in another post that he “wrote (his) own book,” in reference to his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.

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