Harris Accused of Plagiarizing Passages in Her 2009 Book

The book was co-written with another author the year before Harris became California attorney general.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - OCTOBER 10: Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, appears during a Univision town hall at Cox Pavilion at UNLV on October 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. With 25 days to go before election day, Vice President Harris participated in the Univision town hall before heading to Phoenix for a campaign event. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris has been accused of plagiarizing certain passages of her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime,” co-written with author Joan O’C. Hamilton.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, published the passages in an Oct. 14 article citing the work of Austrian plagiarism hunter Stefan Weber. The article alleges that the 200-page Harris book includes five paragraphs with sentences and sentence fragments copied from other works without proper attribution.