Sad Trombone: The New York Times Is Not Handling the Kamala Harris Plagiarism News Well at All

By Sister Toldjah | 5:36 PM on October 14, 2024

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As we reported earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign has been rocked by allegations that Harris plagiarized parts of her book, "Smart on Crime," which she co-wrote in 2009 with author Joan O'C. Hamilton.

The claims were made by leading Critical Race Theory critic Christopher Rufo in a detailed Twitter/X thread and Substack piece, both of which were published Monday morning.

According to Rufo, the Democrat presidential nominee "plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book," as discovered by Austrian "plagiarism hunter" Dr. Stefan Weber, who Rufo says "has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world."

I wondered at the time how - or even if - the mainstream media would react/report on this story. As it turns out, they are, but some of the outlets, the New York Times in particular, are not taking it well at all.

First up was the predictable "pouncing and seizing" word games, because the story is the conservative reaction to it - not the actual story itself:

Conservative notices Kamala Harris plagiarism. Never change, NY Times. pic.twitter.com/B9Q6r4JcHi
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 14, 2024

Then there was the so-called "plagiarism expert" the Times was able to immediately get comment from, who assured us everything was okay, move along, nothing to see here:

Was the “plagiarism expert” Joe Biden? #Seizing pic.twitter.com/P61nGHUO81
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 14, 2024

You. Have. To. Be. Kidding. Me.

“A plagiarism expert…”

She cut and pasted from friggin’ Wikipedia multiple times…

And Chris Rufo did the work *you* should have doing. pic.twitter.com/c9g739AJvo
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) October 14, 2024

And perhaps the least shocking part about the Times piece was how they fell back on "some academics" (unnamed) to portray Rufo and his work exposing plagiarists as "racist" because of course:

Somebody hang this in the Louvre. The New York Times claims that I "seize[d] on" Kamala Harris's serial plagiarism. Admits later in the story that it is, in fact, plagiarism. And then calls noticing that fact "racist." pic.twitter.com/igfEpwP1h7
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024

Strangely, when you click on the link to read the piece, not a single academic is cited, nor is a quote provided.

As RedState readers will remember, Rufo revealed in December 2023 that then-Harvard president Claudine Gay "plagiarized multiple sections of her Ph.D. thesis." Gay resigned just a few weeks later after coming under fire over the plagiarism scandal and over how she responded to antisemitism on the Harvard campus after the October 7th Hamas terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

Relatedly, Kamala Harris has previously been accused of plagiarizing Martin Luther King Jr.

In any event, the Trump campaign has rendered a final verdict on the Times' reaction to Rufo's documentation:

The spin is already on from Kamala’s media lapdogs at the New York Times.

It was a fiery but mostly peaceful plagiarism! https://t.co/fhqHtwpcWv pic.twitter.com/DxtVFxLoYC
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 14, 2024

Heh.