In the 2007 congressional testimony, Kamala Harris borrowed linguistic elements from a Republican lawyer.
Professionals from CNN mentioned that the occurrence, initially reported by the conservative news outlet the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday, stirs up concern yet doesn't qualify as a major instance of plagiarism.
The incident transpired during Harris' tenure as district attorney of San Francisco. She testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support of the John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007, a bill aimed at establishing a student loan repayment program for state and local prosecutors and public defenders.
Her prepared remarks incorporated sections from the prepared testimony of Paul Logli, then a Republican state’s attorney from Illinois and chair of the National District Attorneys Association's board, who testified before the Senate two months prior. The sections shared the same survey and almost identical language.
At the time, Harris was a member of the National District Attorneys Association's board of directors, as per her own testimony. CNN attempted to get Logli's comments but received no response.
Logli informed the Free Beacon that he recalls the organization conducting research and drafting his opening statement. He suggested that the organization may have used similar statements to maintain consistency with its stance.
“Kamala Harris represented California state prosecutors as a member of the National District Attorneys Association’s Board of Directors and testified in that capacity two months later before the House Judiciary Committee,” he told the Beacon. “I believe she also relied on NDAA staff support for her opening statement.”
The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
“Certainly, it's not even close to a serious case of plagiarism, to be frank. We're currently investigating it since she's running for president. We can argue over its ethical nature, but I bet it's incredibly common practice [in politics],” said Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism expert running the site Plagiarism Today.
The latest instance follows a conservative critic's accusations against Harris last week of plagiarism in her co-authored 2009 book. CNN examined various passages and discovered that Harris and her co-author failed to appropriately cite sources.
The Free Beacon also found that as the California attorney general, Harris authorized the publication of a 2012 report on human trafficking, which presented an anonymized case of sex trafficking in San Francisco as a genuine incident, while later incorporating language from a nonprofit's website in the process, which was acknowledged in the report.
“Applying the high level of originality typically expected in journalism or academic writing to political speeches is misguided,” said Michael Dougherty, a professor of philosophy at Ohio Dominican University who wrote a book on plagiarism. “A strict usage of the term ‘plagiarism’ necessitates a context where originality is rightly anticipated.”
In the context of the ongoing investigation, political analyst Jonathan Bailey stated that while Harris' case isn't a serious instance of plagiarism, it might be a common practice in politics. Previously, controversial accusations of plagiarism were made against Harris in her co-authored 2009 book, leading CNN to discover unattributed sources in various passages.
