“The Case Is More Serious”: NYT Hid Extent Of Kamala Harris Plagiarism From Their Own Expert

Earlier this week journalist Chris Rufo revealed that Kamala Harris plagiarized giant sections of her book on crime, after famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Dr. Stefan Weber found that “Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book.”

In response, the New York Times bent over backwards (and forwards) to downplay their preferred candidate’s cut-n-pastery – first casting it as ‘conservative activist seizes on passages‘ from Harris’ book, then totally lying about Rufo’s reporting – which Rufo quickly debunked.

As part of their propaganda, the Times wheeled out plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey, who said “his initial reaction to Mr. Rufo’s claims was that the errors were not serious, given the size of the document.”

Except, the Times concealed the extent of the claims from Bailey – who writes in his Plagiarism Today blog: “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.

ABC does fake fact-checks to help Kamala. CBS stealth-edits an interview to help Kamala. New York Times withholds evidence to help Kamala. This is endemic—and only visible now because we have X.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 17, 2024

From Bailey’s blog:

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 malicious intent to defraud.

Bailey still refers to the plagiarism as nothing more than “sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud.”

Much like it’s not “malicious intent to defraud” when a college student copies Wikipedia word-for-word, then gets expelled?

What’s more, Rufo implored the Times to look at the entire claim – which they refused to do.

When the Times published its piece, I called the reporter and the editor to protest that they withheld evidence from their supposed “expert.” The editor, Mary Suh, gave me the excuse that it wasn’t their job to review the whole report. I hung up on her. pic.twitter.com/D7sQDpJS6P

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 17, 2024

Here is the full 47-page dossier, prepared by famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber. Anyone can read it and come to the conclusion that Kamala Harris plagiarized her book, Smart on Crime. https://t.co/7KvwbzqTOS

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024

Meanwhile, the plagiarism is even worse than reported!

SHE KEEPS GOING: This is a ninth instance of significant plagiarism by Kamala Harris. Although she cited the source, she copied long passages of language verbatim, without paraphrasing or putting it in quotations. It’s textbook “verbatim plagiarism”—and not an isolated incident. pic.twitter.com/5uwWwRDxkt

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024