The plagiarism allegations against Vice President Kamala Harris just got a lot more complicated, with new developments shedding light on the extent of the controversy. Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism consultant frequently cited by the “New York Times,” published a follow-up report on *Plagiarism Today* revealing that the issue is “more serious” than his initial review suggested.
Bailey initially told the “New York Times” that the infractions reflected “sloppy writing habits” rather than deliberate fraud. However, in his latest statement, he clarified that he hadn’t seen the full scope of the allegations at the time. His revised analysis comes after reviewing a detailed dossier by Austrian professor and plagiarism researcher Stefan Weber, who found 27 instances of plagiarism in Harris’ book.
Bailey came around: “While I believe the case is more serious than I commented to the “New York Times,” the overarching points remain. There are problems with this work, but the pattern suggests carelessness rather than malicious intent.” However, he did concede that at least two paragraphs copied verbatim from Wikipedia were clear-cut plagiarism. Making things worse, one of the copied passages even contained factual errors from the Wikipedia entry.
“To be clear, that is plagiarism,” Bailey wrote, highlighting that the use of Wikipedia without attribution is especially problematic given the site’s reputation for unreliability. “It’s a breach of standards—though not the wholesale fraud some have made it out to be.”
Did you catch that? So yeah it is plagiarism but…Since Kamala did it’s really not that bad. Also, when did “Wikipedia” become a viable source when you are writing a book?
Weber, the professor behind the investigation, reported that 24 of the plagiarized passages came from other authors, while three were classified as self-plagiarism—where Harris and her co-author reused content from their previous work without proper citation. According to Weber’s findings, these passages were copied “nearly verbatim” without quotation marks or proper attribution, meeting the textbook definition of plagiarism.
Conservative activist Chris Rufo, who broke the story, has been quick to capitalize on the revelations, arguing that the extent of the copied material amounts to a significant breach of academic and professional standards. “Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages without proper citation, which is the very definition of plagiarism,” Rufo wrote.
Bailey’s evolving stance has caused confusion and stirred controversy. In a tweet on X (formerly Twitter), Bailey clarified that his original comments to the “New York Times” were based on just five examples provided by the newspaper, not a complete analysis. “For those coming here from the *NY Times* article, I want to be clear that I have NOT performed a full analysis of the book. My quotes were based on information provided to me by the reporters and spoke only about those passages,” he posted.
Bailey’s follow-up analysis has left people on both sides of the debate frustrated. “No matter your side, this will be an unsatisfactory answer,” he admitted, knowing that his nuanced take—acknowledging plagiarism but framing it as negligence rather than fraud—would satisfy neither critics nor defenders.
Let’s call this what it is. Bailey went out their to downplay the allegations and then tried to give an “honest” assessment to save his credibility.