NY Times accused of lying about Kamala Harris plagiarism allegations to minimize scandal

The left-leaning New York Times was accused of “lying about” plagiarism allegations against Vice President Kamala Harris to undermine an exclusive report by a conservative activist who called out the Democratic presidential candidate.Christopher Rufo — who helped expose alleged plagiarism by Harvard president Claudine Gay that eventually led to her ouster — posted on Monday that several passages in Harris’ 2009 book, “Smart on Crime,” closely resembled or perfectly matched wording from other sources.The Times followed with a story that noted Rufo found only “five sections” involving “about 500 words” that raised questions.

It quoted plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey, who said Rufo took relatively minor citation mistakes and tried to “make a bid deal of it.”The “amount of plagiarism amounts to an error and not an intent to defraud,” Bailey, who runs the website “Plagiarism Today,” told the Times.But after the Gray Lady published its story, Bailey wrote on his X account that his quotes were based on “information provided to me by the reporters” and that he had not done a full analysis of the book — written by Harris when she was California attorney general.Rufo said he provided the Times the full analysis by Austrian researcher Dr.Stefan Weber, who found “18 allegations of varying severity” — a much more extensive sample than that cited by the Times.“The New York Times is lying about my plagiarism story and I have the receipts to prove it,” Rufo, an academic at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute, wrote on X on Tuesday in a lengthy post.He accused the Times of having “deliberately withheld” the full analysis conducted by Weber to minimize the extent of the scandal.When he asked the Times “politely for a correction,” the editor, Mary Suh, “had nothing but excuses,” Rufo said.“And so, we’re going to fight this one out,” Rufo said, adding: “They should issue a correction, but, even if they do not...