WATCH: JD Vance SLAMS Kamala Harris During Rally For Copying Wikipedia For 2009 Book

During a rally in Wilmington, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance (R-OH) explained the stark difference between 45th President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris by highlighting a recent plagiarism scandal surrounding her 2009 book, Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer.

"You know, I think one big difference between me and Kamala Harris is that I wrote my book and she copied hers from Wikipedia. And I don't think we want to make the person who copies her book from Wikipedia the president of the United States," Vance said. "We'd like to make a guy who's already done the job as president and done a very good damn job. That's Donald J. Trump, and that's our guy for president of the United States."

As previously reported by the DC Enquirer, the accusations stem from an investigation by Austrian "plagiarism hunter" Stefan Weber, who is known in the German-speaking world for taking down politicians for their plagiarism. To showcase the multiple examples of blatant copying, Rufo posted side-by-side comparisons of text from Harris' book and five different sources, all published before the then-San Francisco district attorney released her first book, according to Rufo's substack article on the accusations. The New York Post reported that Harris lifted passages from a Wikipedia article drafted in 2008, an Urban Institute report from 2004, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release from 2007, a Bureau of Justice Assistance report from 2000, and an Associated Press article from 2008. 

"Taken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism," Rufo explained. "Of course, Harris, like many other public figures, may have relied entirely on a ghostwriter to draft her book. But that is not exculpatory: Harris, at the end of the day, put her name on the cover. On that point, one might recall the title of her book: Smart on Crime. There is nothing smart about plagiarism, which is the equivalent of an academic crime. The publisher, as well as the sitting vice president, should retract the plagiarized passages and issue a correction. There should be a single standard—and Kamala Harris is falling short."

The accusations against Harris could be devastating to her campaign given the multiple instances in which plagiarism has sunk presidential hopefuls, including President Joe Biden in 1987. After Rufo published the accusations, Vance took to X to write, "Hi, I'm JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia."

.@JDVance: "One big difference between me and Kamala Harris is I wrote my book and she copied hers from Wikipedia -- And I don't think we want to make the person who copied her book from Wikipedia the President of the United States." pic.twitter.com/PPjHe1u7U7

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 16, 2024

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