Kamala Harris’s campaign has come to a screeching halt. This scandal could end her political career.
As serious allegations have rocked the Harris campaign and Democrats are freaking out.
Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism consultant frequently associated with the New York Times, has revised his assessment of the plagiarism allegations surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris.
Bailey released his “full analysis” this week, following a review of new evidence, and found the situation “more serious” than he initially believed.
In a statement published Wednesday on Plagiarism Today, Bailey explained, “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.”
Bailey’s new evaluation stems from a dossier prepared by Austrian professor Dr. Stefan Weber, a well-known figure in plagiarism analysis.
Having previously covered Weber’s work and even performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018, Bailey approached the new allegations with fresh scrutiny.
“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 wrote.
Despite acknowledging more serious issues in Harris’ writing, Bailey maintained his position that these were instances of carelessness rather than intentional deception.
“Is it problematic? Yes. But it’s also not the wholesale fraud that many have claimed it to be. It sits somewhere between what the two sides want it to be,” he said.
Among the examples Bailey revisited were two paragraphs copied directly from Wikipedia. On these, he conceded: “To be clear, that is plagiarism. It’s compounded by the fact that Wikipedia is typically not seen as a reliable source, and, according to Weber, there was an error in the information.”
Bailey’s ultimate conclusion was that neither side of the debate would be satisfied with his findings. “I don’t feel that the book is a product of wholesale malicious plagiarism, nor do I think it’s free from problems. No matter your side, this will be an unsatisfactory answer.”
Earlier, in a New York Times article dissecting the plagiarism claims, Bailey had downplayed the examples, referring to them as “an error and not an intent to defraud.” He also criticized conservative activist Chris Rufo, who broke the story, for exaggerating minor infractions to inflate the severity of the situation.
However, Bailey later clarified on X (formerly Twitter) that his initial analysis was based on only a limited set of examples provided to him by New York Times reporters.
“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 wrote.
Rufo’s original report, published Monday, cited Professor Weber’s analysis, which identified 27 instances of alleged plagiarism in Harris’ work.
According to Rufo, “24 fragments are plagiarism from other authors, [and] 3 fragments are self-plagiarism from a work written with a co-author.”
Rufo asserted that Harris and her co-author’s failure to cite or use quotation marks constituted a “breach of standards,” saying, “Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism.”
While the debate over the severity of the allegations continues, Bailey’s more comprehensive review now acknowledges deeper flaws in Harris’ work, though he still disputes claims of intentional fraud.
Stay tuned to The Federalist Wire.
