The plagiarism consultant used by The New York Times to examine multiple questionable passages of Vice President Kamala Harris' 2009 book said further scrutiny revealed that the surfaced cases were "more serious" than he originally thought.
One day after telling the Times that the passages from Harris' book, "Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer," were "relatively minor as far as plagiarism goes," Jonathan Bailey took to his own website after a complete analysis to say that Harris did, indeed, plagiarize multiple passages.
Renowned "plagiarism hunter" Stefan Weber found multiple passages in Harris' book that closely resembled or were taken word-for-word from other sources without attribution. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo independently verified and then published the passages in question, leading the Times to call on Bailey for his reaction.
Bailey said he gave the Times his analysis prior to performing a full analysis of the 40-page "complete dossier" assembled by Weber.
"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 on Plagiarism Today. "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."
Bailey wrote, "The most serious allegation concerns Wikipedia.
"Harris' book contained roughly two paragraphs copied from Wikipedia without citation. To be clear, that is plagiarism," Bailey wrote.
In the end, however, Bailey chalked up Harris' plagiarism to "negligence" and "sloppy work/writing" as opposed to "malice."
"Ultimately, I recognize that this view will make absolutely no one happy. 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," Bailey concluded.